Preamble

The House met at Half-past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (MACCLESFIELD) BILL

"to confirm a Provisional Order of the Minister of Health relating to the Borough of Macclesfield," presented by Mr. Bevan; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 124.]

MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER (MORLEY) BILL

"to confirm a Provisional Order of the Minister of Health relating to the Borough of Morley," presented by Mr. Bevan; read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, and to be printed. [Bill 125.]

ASHDOWN FOREST [MONEY]

Committee to consider of authorising the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of expenses incurred or payments to be made under any Act of the present Session vesting part of Ashdown Forest in the Secretary of State for the War Department and providing for the acquisition of other lands in substitution for such part, for the use of the said Forest for military training, and for the repayment to the Conservators of the costs, charges and expenses of the promotion of the Bill for the said Act (King's Recommendation signified), To-morrow.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY

Control Commission

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many of the Control Commission staff now employed have already proved redundant,

and whether it is his policy to terminate the contracts of those who are redundant and pay the necessary compensation.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ernest Bevin): Reduction of the Control Commission because of redundancy is now a continuous process, and there are about 670 existing members of the staff under notice of termination. The answer to the second part of the Question is, "Yes," compensation being payable only to those entitled to it by their terms of service.

Mr. Stokes: While my right hon. Friend may be perfectly right in saying that this is a continuous process, will he say if this continuous process is prompt enough?

Mr. Bevin: I think so.

Mr. Vane: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what incentives are offered to members of the Control Commission for Germany to learn German; when official examinations were instituted; and how many members have, respectively, sat for and passed these examinations.

Mr. Bevin: A knowledge of German is a pre-requisite for employment in certain posts in Germany, and is more and more regarded as desirable for the whole staff of the Commission. Every encouragement is accordingly given to learn German and to obtain formal qualifications by examination. Official examinations have now been introduced for Kreis Resident Officers and analogous posts. The first of these examinations was held in December, 1948; there were 204 candidates, of whom 79 were declared successful.

Mr. Vane: Would not the right hon. Gentleman think that the best encouragement that could be given to members of the Control Commission to learn German—which is, surely, very necessary—would be to give some financial bonus to those who pass with high marks? Does he not think it disappointing that at the present time the only way by which one can get anything in the way of a financial bonus is to change from an official character and become a professional interpreter?

Mr. Bevin: A good many of us have had to learn things in this life without having any bonus. I should have thought


that these facilities offered to them would have been a great encouragement to them to learn German, with the great opportunity it gives them in Europe.

Major Tufton Beamish: Will the right hon. Gentleman also consider making it compulsory for Control Commission officers to learn German when they have been out there more than a year or so, and to pass an elementary examination?

Mr. Bevin: I will look into that.

Mr. Wilson Harris: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think it desirable that there should be more personal contacts between the members of the Commission and individual Germans, and would not the acquisition of the German language facilitate those contacts?

Mr. Bevin: I do not know. I think the Control Commission has had a very difficult job, and I should not like to give answers to these questions without careful consideration whether we have been wise or unwise in the steps we have taken.

Mr. Mott-Radclyffe: Is there any reason why the payment of the ordinary allowance for knowledge of a foreign language, which is current in the Foreign Service, should not be extended to the Control Commission?

Mr. Bevin: I will look into that.

Max Reimann (Sentence)

Mr. Vane: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on what grounds Max Reimann, leader of the Communist Party in Western Germany, was recently sentenced to prison; and on what grounds he has been released.

Mr. Bevin: Max Reimann was convicted for a breach of Military Government Ordinance No. 8, which provides, among other things, that nothing may be said or written which encourages discrimination against persons who give or may give aid to the Allied Authorities. He was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, which was suspended by the Military Governor in order that he may continue his work on the Parliamentary Council at Bonn.

Mr. Vane: What is to happen now that the deliberations on the basic law for the German Parliament are complete?

Mr. Bevin: I do not know.

War Crime Trials

Mr. Vane: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on the progress in Germany of the series of trials known as "operation Old Lace."

Mr. Bevin: The trials of members of the organisations declared criminal by the International Military Tribunal, which were begun in June, 1947, are now nearing completion. By the end of last year over 20,000 persons had been tried, of whom, 75 per cent. were convicted. At 6th April, which is the latest date for which figures were available, 168 cases had still to be tried, and 203 cases were under investigation prior to being brought to trial.

Mr. Vane: Does the reply of the right hon. Gentleman mean that there are now only 168 persons still in custody awaiting trial?

Mr. Bevin: Oh, no. There are 168, and 203 whose cases are under investigation.

Foreign Assets (Seizure)

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the German authorities in the Western zones have yet enacted legislation to provide compensation in German currency for losses arising from the seizure of foreign assets for reparations; and why certain German ex-prisoners of war still find themselves unable to obtain compensation for Italian lire impounded from them on their capture in Italy.

Mr. Bevin: The task of equalising burdens arising from the war and other causes has proved so complex that the German Authorities in Western Germany have, so far, been unable to do more than draw up a measure designed to relieve the most urgent cases of distress. The provision of compensation for losses arising from the seizure of foreign assets, including foreign currency, must await more comprehensive legislation on the subject which is unlikely to be ready for some time.

Mr. Stokes: In view of my right hon. Friend's statement, will he say to whom people who consider that they have urgent cases should make their representations?

Mr. Bevin: To the German authorities.

Oral Answers to Questions — FORMER BALTIC STATES (ASSETS)

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now make a statement as to the use of assets of the former Baltic States now held by the Custodian for the satisfaction of claims of British creditors of these States.

Mr. Bevin: The matter is still under consideration, and at the present time I have nothing to add to the statement made on 12th April, 1948, by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Can the right hon. Gentleman hold out any hope that he will be able to come to a decision on this matter before very long?

Mr. Bevin: I am always hopeful, but I do not gamble on probabilities.

Oral Answers to Questions — U.K. VISAS (MEMBERS OF LEGISLATURES)

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in how many cases His Majesty's Government's consular or diplomatic agents have refused to grant a visa to an American senator or representative; when, and for what reasons; and how far it is the practice of such agents to make inquiries into the political opinions of members of the Legislatures of Allied countries or to subject them to any form of political test in peace time before granting them visas to visit Britain.

Mr. Bevin: I am not aware of any cases in which a visa for the United Kingdom has been refused to an American senator or representative. Members of foreign legislatures are dealt with in the same manner as other foreign visitors to the United Kingdom. No special tests are made as to a person's political opinions before granting him an entry visa for the United Kingdom.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Does not my right hon. Friend think that it will do a great deal to promote the spread of common sense in the world if at least the English-speaking peoples allow the members of other legislatures to travel quite freely between the countries which they represent and stop the imposition of bans and that kind of thing? May I have an answer?

Mr. Sorensen: Does not this demonstrate that our democracy is superior to that of America?

Mr. Bevin: I think that the problem is slightly different.

Mr. Harold Davies: Will my right hon. Friend, in view of the fact that he once said that he would like to be able to go to Victoria and take a ticket to where the hell he liked—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—endeavour to use his good offices to prevent the American Embassy using secret dossiers on Members of this honourable House?

Mr. Speaker: One must not make these charges against a country in amity with us.

Oral Answers to Questions — ISRAEL (ATTACKED BRITISH AIRCRAFT)

Major Tufton Beamish: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT the protest sent to the Israeli authorities when British fighters were attacked over Egypt on 7th January, 1949; what inquiry there has been into the charge that Spitfires used by the Jewish Air Force carried certain markings similar to those of the British Fighter Squadron in that area; what compensation is being claimed from the State of Israel; and what is the state of the latter negotiations.

Mr. Bevin: I am publishing in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement issued in London shortly after the five R.A.F. aircraft were attacked and shot down. His Majesty's Representatives in Haifa and at the United Nations were instructed to communicate this statement respectively to the Israeli Government and to the Israeli Representative at Lake Success and to make a strong protest, stating that His Majesty's Government reserved their rights with regard to compensation. His Majesty's Government also requested the United Nations Acting Mediator to furnish a report on the incident and have since urged Dr. Bunche to complete this report as soon as possible. The question of compensation has not meanwhile been raised with the Israeli Government and there have been no negotiations on this subject.

Major Beamish: Can the Foreign Secretary answer that part of my Question which asks whether any explanation has


been received regarding the Government's charge that the Jewish Spitfires were carrying red spinners, as I believe they are called, in imitation of a British Fighter squadron stationed in the area.

Mr. Bevin: An R.A.F. Court of Inquiry was held to investigate this incident and reported that the Israeli fighters were Spitfires with the British type of camouflage and red air-screw spinners similar to those of No. 208 Squadron. A full statement was made on this subject to the House by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air on 17th March.

Mr. Oliver Stanley: In view of the fact that there is now an accredited representative of the Israeli Government, will the right hon. Gentleman take the matter up through diplomatic channels rather than with the United Nations?

Mr. Bevin: I am very anxious to get this report, which was called for at the time, from Dr. Bunche. I think that the report ought to be presented, and then I shall proceed through diplomatic channels.

Following is the statement:

Statement issued in London on 8th January of the circumstances in which five British aircraft were shot down over Egyptian territory on 7th January, 1949.
During the last few days, R.A.F. aircraft from the Canal Zone have been carrying out reconnaissances to ascertain the depth and scale of Jewish incursion into Egyptian territory. These reconnaissances have been strictly confined to the Egyptian side of the frontier.
On the morning of 7th January, two formations, one of four R.A.F. Spitfires, and one of a single Mosquito escorted by four Tempests, which were on reconnaissance inside the Egyptian Frontier, were attacked by Jewish fighters and the four Spitfires failed to return from the mission. A few hours later, a further air reconnaissance force, despatched to obtain information as to the fate of the missing Spitfires, was also attacked by Jewish aircraft and one Tempest has been reported missing.
The R.A.F. aircraft in question had strict orders not to cross the frontier into

Palestine. The pilot who was the leader of the Spitfires reported he was attacked 15 miles inside Egyptian territory and compelled to bale out. He was wounded and was picked up by a Bedouin near Bir Gabr Amir approximately 15 miles West of Rafah.
Our aircraft had been under strict orders to avoid combat. In view of these unprovoked attacks, our aircraft have now been instructed to regard as hostile any Jewish aircraft encountered over Egyptian territory.

Oral Answers to Questions — "BRITISH ALLY," MOSCOW (EDITOR)

Mr. Hurd: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what were the technical qualifications and credentials of Mr. A. R. Johnstone at the time when he was appointed editor of the "British Ally" newspaper in Moscow; and whether either the Institute of Journalists or the National Union of Journalists was consulted about his reliability for this post.

Mr. Bevin: Before being appointed to the staff of "British Ally" Mr. Johnstone had had 20 years' experience on the staff of well-established newspapers in Scotland, Manchester and London. As regards the second part of the Question, the vacancy for an editor for "British Ally" was reported to the National Union of Journalists by the Appointments Department of the Ministry of Labour and National Service, to whom it was notified by my Department. It is not, however, the practice of the Foreign Office to consult professional organisations as to the reliability of candidates for appointments.

Mr. Hurd: Will the Foreign Secretary ensure that in future the Institute of Journalists is also consulted about vacancies of this kind? Would it not be a good policy for the Foreign Office to check up with one or other of these professional organisations whenever a Press attaché or anyone of that kind is being appointed to the Foreign Service?

Mr. Bevin: I do not think so. It is better to deal with the question by what we call vetting people in our own way than to ask organisations to suggest people to fill vacancies in these posts. I think that it would place them in a most unfortunate situation if we adopted that policy.

Mr. Wilson Harris: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider, when making fresh appointments to the "British Ally," that it is undesirable to describe as editor someone who, as the Parliamentary Secretary explained last week, does not in the ordinary sense edit; and if the editor is not to be responsible for policy and the contents of the paper, is it not desirable to describe him as a sub-editor or something of that kind?

Mr. Bevin: I think that I will consult the hon. Member on the set-up of the "Spectator," which may be a good guide.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Can my right hon. Friend say whether this gentleman's competence to do the job for which he was appointed was ever questioned by anybody until his recent resignation; and whether his competence or reliability has ever been questioned since, except on the grounds of his declared sympathy for the legal government of Spain, a sympathy which many of us share?

Mr. Bevin: This happened in Russia not in Spain.

Mr. Henry Strauss: Does the right hon. Gentleman think it wise to appoint known fellow-travellers to posts of this kind; and was it wise to express surprise when this gentleman took the course that all his antecedents made it likely that he would take?

Mr. Bevin: If I adopted that policy, what should I do with the applicants from the universities?

Mr. Strauss: May I ask, Mr. Speaker, on a point of Order, whether the Foreign Secretary's answer was meant to be an innuendo on the character of the universities, and, if so, whether that is in accordance with the traditions of this House and in order?

Mr. Speaker: I do not know what the Foreign Secretary's answer was meant to be.

Mr. Silverman: May I repeat the question which my right hon. Friend said he had not grasped? It was in two parts. First, had the competence or reliability of this gentleman ever been questioned by anybody until his resignation; and secondly, had his competence or reliability ever been challenged by anybody except on the ground of his declared

sympathy with the legal Republican Government of Spain—a sympathy which many of us share?

Mr. Bevin: I do not think so.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSJORDAN (ARMS EMBARGO)

Mr. M. Philips Price: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact that armistice agreements have been made between Israel and Transjordan, he will consider raising the arms embargo on the latter country and on any other Arab state that signs an armistice.

Mr. Bevin: It is the desire of His Majesty's Government that the arms embargo should be lifted as soon as peace and tranquillity are reasonably well established. I have the matter under constant review and I hope that the time will not be long delayed.

Mr. Philips Price: Since the Government of Transjordan have signed an armistice agreement with Israel, would not my right hon. Friend consider now lifting the arms embargo for Transjordan and all those who have signed similar agreements?

Mr. Bevin: We hope to clear up the whole situation so that everybody will be in exactly the same position.

Dr. Segal: Would it not be more humane for this country to sell food instead of selling arms to the Arab States, and medical supplies in order to relieve the tens of thousands of Arab refugees who are in danger of dying from starvation and disease?

Mr. Bevin: We are under contract we interrupted this contract under the decision for an armistice, and these people are quite entitled to have those contracts resumed when those conditions are removed. As for the Arab refugees, I think our country has done more for them than any other country in the world, and it would have been very much better if the country who drove them out had not done so.

Oral Answers to Questions — SPAIN (DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS)

Mr. Piratin: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why the United Kingdom representative on the Political


Committee of the United Nations abstained on the resolution to permit members of the United Nations to re-instal Ambassadors in Madrid.

Mr. Bevin: As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary stated in the Adjournment Debate on 2nd February, His Majesty's Government feel that there are practical advantages in having a channel of information and a possible means of humanitarian representation in the form of an Ambassador in Madrid. But, as he also said on the same occasion, we do not attach great importance to this question and are content to abide by the decision of the United Nations as a whole. Our delegation were accordingly instructed to abstain from voting on it.

Mr. Piratin: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that the speech made on this occasion by the United Kingdom representative was distinctly in favour of the resolution, and that it was a surprise to many of the United Nations that he abstained; and can he tell us how he reconciles this action taken at Lake Success on behalf of the United Kingdom with the statements made in the past week by the Under-Secretary, who definitely gave an assurance on more than one occasion that in this matter the Government stood where they did in 1946?

Mr. Bevin: I still stand where I did in 1946, and I am sorry there was the interruption in 1947 by taking away the Ambassador.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: Will the attitude of the United Kingdom representative be the same when the matter comes before the General Assembly, where a two-thirds majority is required?

Mr. Bevin: Yes.

Vice-Admiral Taylor: Is not the question whether or not we have an Ambassador in Madrid one of principle and not merely whether it is to our advantage or disadvantage? I understand we have an Ambassador in Moscow, a country which is far from being friendly to this country and is a danger to the peace of the world, but we have not one in Madrid.

Mr. Francis Noel-Baker: What practical difference, either as a channel

of communication or as a means of humanitarian intervention, does the presence of an Ambassador make, compared with the previous set-up where there was a full Embassy staff with that one exception; and is not my right hon. Friend aware that the only practical result of this move is to provide ammunition for Communist propaganda, as is evidenced by this Question?

Mr. Bevin: I do not think that Communist propaganda has very much effect in these days. This was a decision which I thought did not serve the interests of either country when it was taken, but we are in the habit of observing the rules; we are parties to the United Nations, we honoured the decision, and ever since, Members who are opposed to Spain have been asking me questions about why I do not intervene.

Mr. H. Strauss: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that no good purpose will be served by our representative abstaining from voting when the matter comes before the General Assembly, and that that abstention will be interpreted as meaning either that His Majesty's Government have not made up their mind or that they are frightened of declaring where they stand?

Mr. Bevin: Oh, no, it does not mean that at all.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Does not the Foreign Secretary recognise that the public conscience will be outraged if he puts back the Ambassador in Madrid?

Mr. Warbey: Will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that if the British Ambassador returns to Madrid he will then intervene in defence of political liberty in Spain?

Oral Answers to Questions — BURMA (BRITISH POLICY)

Mr. John Paton: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has any statement to make about the policy of His Majesty's Government towards Burma.

Mr. Bevin: In the course of the meeting of Commonwealth Prime Ministers in London, the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan and Ceylon met together to consider the


Burmese Prime Minister's request for assistance in the early restoration of law and order in Burma. They are agreed in their desire to give whatever support they can to the Government of Thakin Nu, to the end that peace may be rapidly restored in Burma. Necessary machinery has been set up to ensure speedy implementation of this decision.

Mr. Gammans: Is any loan to be given to the Government of Burma to achieve this end?

Mr. Bevin: That all depends on what is recommended by this machinery. We shall take into account financial assistance, arms assistance, or other assistance. The whole matter is being coordinated by the Governments I have mentioned.

Mr. Paton: Is there, among the various forms of assistance that are being considered, the provision of technical advisers; and in view of the extreme urgency of the situation in Burma, would he do his best to speed the conclusions?

Mr. Stanley: Is this same machinery, which according to the right hon. Gentleman will consider the advisability of a loan to Burma, also considering the very large claims which dispossessed industries in this country have against the Burmese Government.

Mr. Bevin: Our position in that regard has been made perfectly clear. It is essential for South-East Asia that steps be taken to get order in the whole of that territory, and this is a co-ordinated effort to try to assist in getting law and order first.

Mr. Walter Fletcher: Does not the Foreign Secretary realise that the most urgent need is to see that a flow of consumer goods gets into the hands of the rice producers in Burma so that the flow of rice so badly needed shall come out regularly?

Mr. Bevin: Well, I think that the rice exports up to now, notwithstanding the civil war, has been remarkable this year—far better than we expected. We are ready to assist in the distribution of consumer goods, or in supplying them or any other supplies. We felt it was essential that instead of having one Commonwealth Government appealing against

another, we should co-ordinate their efforts, and we adopted this method.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Would the right hon. Gentleman enlarge upon the machinery to which he referred? What sort of machinery? What does he mean exactly? Would he explain a little more what kind of machinery has been set up for this purpose?

Mr. Bevin: It has been mainly the Ambassadors in Rangoon providing the technical assistance and the people available.

Oral Answers to Questions — JAPAN

Peace Treaty (Proposals)

Mr. William Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the recent American recommendation that Japan should be allowed to attend certain international conferences, he will consider the desirability of re-opening the question of a peace treaty with Japan, or, failing that, a settlement of Japanese reparations.

Mr. Bevin: Our views on the desirability of concluding a peace settlement in the Far East are well known. But this is not a subject on which we can make progress alone. The proposal to which the hon. Gentleman refers does not represent any fresh development towards removing the obstacles which have hitherto prevented consideration of a Japanese peace treaty.

Mr. Teeling: In view of the suggestion that the Japanese should attend international conferences and of the possibility that the United States may press for Japan receiving most-favoured-nation terms, surely we ought to come to some decision on reparations beforehand; and, as things are now getting better with Russia, would not this be the moment for us to press for a peace treaty with Japan?

Mr. Bevin: I think we must wait for the convalescence to be effective before taking another step.

British Nationals (Taxation)

Mr. Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why British firms and British subjects now residing in Japan have to pay Japanese taxes; to


what extent these taxes are to repair damage done to Japanese plant, machinery and houses by the Allies during the war; and whether such sums paid by British subjects will be offset against Japanese debts owed to Great Britain.

Mr. Bevin: British firms and nationals in Japan cannot justifiably escape the payment of normal taxation, which contributes to the stabilisation of the Japanese economy and from which they themselves therefore derive benefit. The taxes are non-discriminatory and are paid by all other United Nations nationals in Japan. United Nations nationals are not, however, required to pay taxes which are either based upon income received in non-yen currencies, or primarily designed to meet costs directly arising out of the war. For this reason they have been exempted from the provisions of the Capital Levy Law of 1946, the Non-WarSufferers Special Tax, and wherever appropriate, from the War Indemnity Special Measures Law. It is not possible to compute the extent to which ordinary national and local taxation is devoted to repairing the ravages of war. The answer to the last part of the Question is "No, Sir."

Mr. Teeling: If we have to pay taxes to Japan, and are not being allowed to receive reparations for damage done in different parts of the Empire, does not the right hon. Gentleman feel that it is high time that we ceased to argue that it is the United States who is indirectly paying us if we press Japan? We are paying this money and, that being so, why should it not be canalised for our own reparations?

Oral Answers to Questions — EASTERN EUROPE (TREATY VIOLATIONS)

Mr. Eric Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what action he is proposing to take under Article 36 of the Peace Treaty with Bulgaria, and similar articles of the Treaty with Hungary and Roumania, in respect of treaty violations by those countries.

Mr. Bevin: As foreshadowed in the reply made to a Question by my hon. Friend on 16th March, notes were

addressed to the Governments of Bulgaria, Hungary and Roumania on 2nd April charging them with having violated the human rights clauses of the respective treaties of peace. Similar notes were sent by the United States Government. The replies which have been received from these Governments are unsatisfactory, and His Majesty's Government are at present considering, in conjunction with the United States Government and the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand Governments, what further action they will take.

Mr. Philips Price: In view of the continued violation of this Treaty does not my right hon. Friend consider that we should no longer regard it as valid?

Mr. Bevin: We must consult with other signatories to the Treaty. I do not despair of circumstances arising in which we may be able to carry it out. It seems to me that a situation is developing in which we may even be called comrades again.

Mr. Platts-Mills: In view of the fact that the Americans are now, very sensibly, calling off the cold war had not the right hon. Gentleman better stop this silly provocation of the Eastern European Governments?

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH GUIANA (URANIUM ORES CONCESSION)

Mr. Platts-Mills: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why Mr. John Younglove Cole, an American citizen, was given exclusive rights to search for radio-active uranium-bearing ores in the Kanuku Mountains area of British Guiana.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Creech Jones): I understand that Mr. Cole applied for the rights in the usual way. There is no discrimination, on nationality grounds, in the grant of such rights.

Mr. Platts-Mills: Does this mean that, with other Western Empires, we shall yield to the Americans the exclusive right to take radium bearing minerals from our Colonies? Is this to help the Americans in their preparations for an aggressive war?

Mr. Creech Jones: The first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question does not arise, as the Governor of the territory has complete control over the exploitation of these minerals.

Oral Answers to Questions — COLONIAL EMPIRE

Trade with Japan

Mr. Dodds-Parker: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies to what extent Colonial legislative councils and Colonial chambers of commerce were consulted before the conclusion of the recent trade agreement between the Commonwealth and the Allied authorities in Japan.

Mr. Creech Jones: Colonial Governors were consulted before the conclusion, last November, of the arrangement relating to trade with Japan in the year ending June, 1949. I am unable to say to what extent legislative councils and chambers of commerce in the Colonies were consulted.

Mr. Dodds-Parker: In view of the very far-reaching effect of this agreement, will the right hon. Gentleman take care to see that there is full consultation with legislative councils and chambers of commerce?

Mr. Creech Jones: I will certainly take that into account.

Trade Unionists (Visits to U.K.)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies to what extent the Trades Union Congress in this country has been consulted and their co-operation secured in regard to facilities for West African and other colonial trade unionists to visit this country and secure experience of British trade union methods and organisation.

Mr. Creech Jones: Preliminary consultation has taken place with the Trades Union Congress on facilities for a number of Nigerian trade unionists and I am awaiting particulars of the proposed trainees in order that arrangements for practical training with individual unions here can be explored. The Trades Union Congress have agreed to co-operate in a scheme under which West Indian trade unionists are to be given six months' practical courses in trade union work in this country.

Mr. Sorensen: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how many prospective trainees will come to this country?

Mr. Creech Jones: I cannot say. That is a matter for discussion now.

Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that a deputation from the trade unionists of this country to the various Colonies would do more than anything else to create good feeling and confidence amongst the natives, and would he invite the Trade Union Congress of this country to send such a deputation to the various Colonies?

Mr. Creech Jones: That will he considered.

Oral Answers to Questions — DAR-ES-SALAAM (PORT EQUIPMENT)

Mr. Dodds-Parker: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how much of the port equipment ordered in 1947 has now been installed in Dar-Es-Salaam.

Mr. Creech Jones: The following are the details: Tugs, three ordered and three in use; Barges, four ordered and four in use; Lighters, 20 ordered and one in use; Flat wagons, 25 ordered and five in use; Coal grabs, five ordered and five in use; also, one new transit shed.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTH BORNEO AND SARAWAK (RICE)

Mr. Thomas Reid: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if, in view of the fact that North Borneo and Sarawak import about half their rice supplies, he will make a statement on the progress of the schemes to grow rice there on a large scale by mechanical methods.

Mr. Creech Jones: Trials are proceeding in Sarawak for the mechanised cultivation of rice. Any question of large-scale mechanised schemes in both Sarawak and North Borneo must wait until it is established that small-scale trials are successful.

Oral Answers to Questions — HONG KONG

New Civil Aerodrome

Mr. Gammons: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is in a


position to state when the new civil aerodrome in Hong Kong is likely to be finished and ready for use.

Mr. Creech Jones: It has been decided in principle to proceed with the construction of a new airport on the shores of Deep Bay, but it is not yet possible to say when it will be ready for use.

Mr. Gammans: Is it not a fact that this aerodrome has scarcely been started, although it has been well known for years that the Kai Tak aerodrome is one of the most dangerous in the world?

Mr. Creech Jones: There has been considerable examination of this problem, but it is true that building has not yet begun.

Air-Commodore Harvey: When did construction start at Deep Bay?

Mr. Creech Jones: It has not yet been started.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: In view of the aggravated threat from Communist armies approaching this place is it not time that something was done about this matter? Will the right hon. Gentleman speed it up in every possible way?

Mr. Creech Jones: Yes, Sir, it is being speeded up.

Legislature

Mr. Collins: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware that the Hong Kong Legislature does not enjoy the confidence of a large and responsible section of the community; and if he will consider changes in the constitution of the Colony to permit of an elected Legislature.

Mr. Creech Jones: No, Sir. As to the second part of the Question, as in all Colonies the constitutional position is constantly under review and, where necessary, steps are taken to bring it progressively into line with current needs.

Mr. Collins: Is it not a fact that at a recent meeting of the Reform Club in Hong Kong a statement about lack of confidence in the Legislature was agreed? Is not that having an effect in the slow recruitment for the Hong Kong Defence Force?

Mr. Creech Jones: The slowness of constitutional change in Hong Kong arises from the apathy of the general public.

Chinese Repatriates

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware of the action of the Hong Kong Government in preventing Chinese deported from Malaya and Indonesia from landing at Hong Kong so that they may return to China and avoid the arrest which awaits them at Swatow or Amoy; by what authority such action has been taken; and if, in view of the fact that the military situation in Malaya necessitates deportation without trial, he will advise the Government to allow such deportees to land at Hong Kong.

Mr. Creech Jones: Yes, Sir. Chinese repatriates from Malaya are sent direct to a Chinese port in accordance with international practice. The Hong Kong Government, for good reasons, does not permit their landing and I feel unable to interfere with the Governor's discretion in this matter. If the Hong Kong Government have prevented Chinese deported from Indonesia from landing there that too would clearly be within their discretion.

Mr. Driberg: Would my right hon. Friend look again at the correspondence he has had about this matter from Bishop Hall, who is in a position to know the facts and the hardships and to regard them in an unbiased way, especially, in view of the importance of developing good relations with the victorious forces in China?

Mr. Creech Jones: Certainly I will look at the correspondence, but I gathered that there had been no hardship.

Mr. W. Fletcher: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it would be the height of folly to allow these men to enter Hong Kong when for good reasons they have been deported from Malaya, and would he also agree that it is by no means certain that entry into Swatow is followed by arrest, as stated in the Question, and that the flow is now being adequately handled and no great hardship is being caused?

Mr. Creech Jones: Yes, the hon. Member has stated the correct position.

Oral Answers to Questions — MALAYA AND SINGAPORE

Japanese Textiles (Imports)

Mr. Gammans: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the policy of the Governments of the Federation of Malaya and of Singapore regarding the importation of Japanese textiles.

Mr. Creech Jones: The policy is governed by the trade arrangement between sterling area countries and the Supreme Commander, Allied Powers, in Japan, for the period July, 1948, to June, 1949. An import quota for cotton piece goods has been established within the framework of this arrangement, and particulars of allocations have been notified to importers.

Mr. Gammans: Does that mean that the interests of Lancashire have been safeguarded, or are no limits likely to be imposed on the importation of Japanese textiles?

Mr. Creech Jones: I do not think that the interests of Lancashire are involved at all in this arrangement.

Mr. W. Fletcher: Contrary to what the right hon. Gentleman has just said, is it not a fact that the interests both of Lancashire and the distributing entrepôt in Singapore are being seriously damaged by imports of Japanese grey cloth which is processed here and sent abroad? It is creating great competition with Lancashire.

Mr. Creech Jones: These goods are desperately required in that part of the world.

Mr. Paton: Is it not also a British interest that Japanese people should live?

Shooting (Police Action)

Mr. Piratin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what information he has about the two women killed by the police in Malaya on the 23rd February entitling him to define them as bandits.

Mr. Creech Jones: The circumstances in which these women were killed leave no room for doubt. One of the women was in uniform and armed with a pistol and a hand grenade.

Mr. Piratin: The Minister has not accounted for the other woman, and in view of the fact that the House must assume that no statement was taken from her because she was killed before any statement could be taken, could he say on what basis he states that she was a bandit?

Mr. Creech Jones: I think the evidence is complete from the documents which were found on the woman.

Mr. S. Silverman: Could my right hon. Friend tell us how long it has been customary for bandits to wear uniform?

Mr. W. Fletcher: Should not self-preservation precede definition?

Detained Persons

Mr. Piratin: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many persons were detained in Malaya and Singapore at the latest available date; how is their time occupied; if they perform productive work; and how they are paid for their labour.

Mr. Creech Jones: One hundred and fifty-six persons were detained in Singapore on 1st May. Four thousand and thirty-nine persons were detained in the Federation of Malaya on 31st January. I will make inquiries about the other points and will write to the hon. Member.

Mr. Awbery: Could my right hon. Friend say how many of these were Chinese and how many were Malays?

Mr. Creech Jones: A great proportion of them were Chinese.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA

Registration (Fingerprints)

Brigadier Peto: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that all males over the age of 16 in Kenya Colony are about to be forced to have their fingerprints registered, that this includes the white population; and why it has been thought necessary to do away with the present method of registration for natives known as a red book, which was an entirely effective method of registration.

Mr. Creech Jones: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply


given to the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers) last Wednesday. The new system is a more effective and more generally acceptable method of registration.

Brigadier Peto: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this system, which is about to be put into effect, is bound to have the adverse result of lowering the prestige of the white population in the eyes of the native population, and is much resented?

Mr. Creech Jones: I recently returned from Kenya, and I can assure the hon. and gallant Member that this arrangement was reached by a committee on which both Europeans and Africans worked. They unanimously recommended the policy which has been adopted, and which is being carried through by statute in the legislative council with the support of Europeans.

Brigadier Peto: They must have been Socialist Europeans.

Mr. Frederic Harris: The right hon. Gentleman says that the arrangement was generally acceptable, but does he not agree that meetings have been held throughout Kenya lately at which majorities have voted against this step?

Mr. Creech Jones: It is true that meetings have been held recently in a large number of places and that many protests have been made, but, on the other hand, Europeans in the Legislative Council are standing firm about the wisdom and rightness of the legislation they have put through.

White Settlers (Protection)

Mr. Marlowe: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that members of the Kitosh tribe are actively engaged in arson in the Kenya highlands; what steps are being taken to protect the property of white settlers; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Creech Jones: I am consulting the Governor on the subject and will communicate with the hon. Member when his reply is received.

Mr. Marlowe: When the right hon. Gentleman is communicating with the Governor will he draw attention to the fact that the white residents of the

Kenya highlands are not getting sufficient attention from Nairobi, and would he ensure that the Governor would give this matter urgent attention?

Mr. Creech Jones: The observations of the hon. and learned Gentleman will be conveyed to the Governor.

Oral Answers to Questions — JAMAICA (WATER STORAGE)

Mr. Gammans: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what was the cost of building the storage tank at Mount Moreland, Jamaica; to what extent the costs and funds have been met from the Colonial Welfare and Development Funds; and why the tank does not hold water.

Mr. Creech Jones: The whole cost, totalling £2,795, was met from Colonial Development and Welfare Funds. The Jamaica Public Works Department is not satisfied that there is excessive loss of water. Further tests will be undertaken after the next flood rains.

Mr. Gammans: Is it not a fact that this tank never held any water at all? Would the right hon. Gentleman like me to send him some photographs, showing that the tank is split from end to end?

Mr. Creech Jones: This is a matter which is within the competence of the Jamaica Government, but I shall be happy to see the photographs.

Commander Noble: Will not the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is great similarity between his reply and the tank?

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTHERN RHODESIA

Land Settlement

Mr. Hollis: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies to what extent the pronouncement made by him at Salisbury, Rhodesia, on the need for controlling white settlement in Northern Rhodesia involves any modification of the policy on this matter announced by Mr. R. A. Hudson, Secretary of Native Affairs in Northern Rhodesia, to the African Representative Council last August.

Mr. Creech Jones: I stated in my remarks to journalists at Salisbury the


policy as stated by Mr. Hudson. There has been no modification or suggestion of change. As I made clear in a number of speeches during my tour no change in existing land policy or settlement is or has been foreshadowed as it affects either Europeans or Africans.

Mr. Hollis: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that while there may be something to be said for maintaining the present policy and perhaps something to be said for changing it, it is most unfortunate that he used phraseology which gave a wide impression that a change was intended when, in point of fact, no change was intended?

Mr. Creech Jones: I am afraid I did nothing of the sort. I made it perfectly clear that there was an enormous opportunity, both industrially and agriculturally, for European enterprise in Northern Rhodesia, but I added the proviso that Northern Rhodesia was a Protectorate, and, consequently, because of the land laws of Northern Rhodesia, there were limitations in regard to European settlement.

Mr. John Lewis: Is my right hon. Friend in a position to give a categorical assurance to the House that there will be no modification of British policy in this area in respect of this or any other matter without consultation with the representatives of the native population concerned?

Mr. Creech Jones: Yes, the representatives of the Africans serve on the Legislative Council and any change would have to go through that Council.

Executive Council

Mr. Skinnard: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what changes in the powers of unofficial members of the Executive Council in Northern Rhodesia will follow his recent pronouncement on the subject.

Mr. Creech Jones: The constitutional status of the Executive Council has not been changed. The position is that where the four unofficial members of the Executive Council which includes a representative of African interests, tender unanimous advice to the Governor, he will accept it, except in those instances where he would feel called upon to use his reserve powers.
For the information of hon. Members, I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a copy of the statement issued after my discussions in Lusaka.
Following is the statement:
The Secretary of State has agreed, in consultation with His Excellency the Governor and the unofficial members of the Legislative Council of Northern Rhodesia, that the conclusion reached in the London discussions last July that the views of the unofficial members of the Executive Council will carry the same weight in the Executive Council as they do in the Legislative Council, subject to the Governor's reserve powers, should be understood to mean that without prejudice to the constitutional position of the Executive Council, the Governor will accept the advice of the unofficial members of the Executive Council when the four unofficial members are unanimous, except in cases where he would feel it necessary to use his reserve powers.
At least one of the unofficial members of the Executive Council must always be a representative of African interests.
In matters where the Governor is doubtful whether the unanimous opinion of the unofficial members of the Executive Council is supported by the unofficial members of the Legislative Council, the views of the unofficial members of the Legislative Council would be sounded by way of a motion in the Legislative Council or by discussion at an informal meeting of all Members of the Legislative Council.

Industry (Africans)

Mr. H. D. Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what progress has been made in abolishing the industrial colour bar on the Northern Rhodesia copperbelt.

Mr. Creech Jones: Little progress has been made in the discussions on the recommendations of the Dalgleish Report on the advancement of Africans in industry. I took the opportunity of discussing the matter with the bodies concerned during my recent visit. I hope discussions will be continued.

Mineral Royalties

Mr. H. D. Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what


agreement has been reached regarding the ownership and taxation of mineral royalties in Northern Rhodesia.

Mr. Creech Jones: The Government of Northern Rhodesia have not entered into any negotiations with the British South Africa Company regarding the acquisition or taxation of mineral royalties in the territory. There is therefore no question of any agreement having been reached.

Oral Answers to Questions — SIERRA LEONE

Agricultural School

Dr. Segal: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies for how long no agricultural or teacher training courses have been available at the Agricultural School at Bo in the Protectorate of Sierra Leone; and when he intends that these courses shall be re-opened.

Mr. Creech Jones: Agricultural and teacher training courses in the Protectorate of Sierra Leone are at present provided at Njala and not at Bo, which is a Boys' Secondary School.

Dr. Segal: Does my right hon. Friend consider it desirable that this school should be opened as soon as possible?

Mr. Creech Jones: The whole question of educational development is now engaging the active attention of the new Governor.

Dr. Segal: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that the post of Principal of the school at Bo in the Protectorate of Sierra Leone has been vacant for almost five years; and why this long delay has been permitted.

Mr. Creech Jones: The post has been filled by the acting appointment of local officers, but it was decided last year that a person with considerable experience of secondary institutions ought to be selected for the substantive appointment. An officer with these qualifications has been selected and is on leave prior to taking up his appointment.

Hospital Accommodation

Dr. Segal: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies for how many years has no doctor been available in

the hospitals at Port Loko, Kabala and Putchum, in the Protectorate of Sierra Leone; how many beds have been closed down in consequence; and how many miles away is the nearest doctor now available.

Mr. Creech Jones: All three hospitals have been temporarily converted into dispensaries owing to shortage of medical officers. I am asking the Governor for the detailed information required.

Oral Answers to Questions — UGANDA (MAKERERE COLLEGE)

Mr. Sorensen: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many Africans and women serve on the Council of Makerere College.

Mr. Creech Jones: The Council includes one woman, but no Africans.

Mr. Sorensen: Will my right hon. Friend take some steps to see that Africans and women are given adequate representation on the Council of this college?

Mr. Creech Jones: The constitution is one which has been agreed in consultation with the Inter-University Council of this country, and there is no reason at all why, from the various groups who now make up the Council, Africans or more women should not be appointed.

Mr. Sorensen: In view of the fact that there is only one African on it cannot some steps be taken to see why more Africans do not serve on the Council?

Mr. Creech Jones: There are no Africans, but the opportunity to serve on the Council is there and I will bring this to the notice of the chairman of the Council.

Oral Answers to Questions — NYASALAND (CROP PROSPECTS)

Mr. H. D. Hughes: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the present situation regarding famine in Nyasaland; at what price maize is being sold in government shops; and whether the possibility of using part of the unspent Native Welfare Fund of £250,000 to subsidise the price of maize has been considered.

Mr. Creech Jones: Crop prospects have considerably improved. Both the Northern and Central Provinces are now expected to be self-supporting but maize is being imported into certain areas of the Southern Province and is sold at 3d. per pound which involves a subsidy from Government Revenue. It is considered undesirable to charge that subsidy to Native Development and Welfare Funds.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY

Wounded Personnel, Hong Kong

Sir Jocelyn Lucas: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty if he is satisfied that a suitable reception was provided for the naval wounded on arrival at Hong Kong; and whether the hospital facilities and amenities made available were appropriate to the occasion.

The Parliamentary and Financial Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. John Dugdale): Yes, Sir. Naval wounded were brought from Shanghai in the U.S. Hospital Ship "Repose" and transferred to the R.N. Hospital, Hong Kong. This hospital is equipped with all modern facilities. I am satisfied that the staff gave every possible help to the men on their arrival.
I would like to take this opportunity of denying a report which appeared in the "Daily Express" recently alleging that the people of Hong Kong had neglected to welcome the wounded on their arrival there. The report is grossly inaccurate and the House will, I know, be glad to hear that, on the contrary, both individuals and firms have shown the utmost desire to help the men in any way open to them.

Sir J. Lucas: Will the Minister understand that it was because of that report and to give the Minister an opportunity to refute it that this Question was asked?

Air-Commodore Harvey: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I received a cable from Hong Kong this morning stating that officials, official organisations, other organisations and the people of Hong Kong have subscribed £28,000 towards the casualties.

Fleet Dispositions

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what is the latest date as at which he is prepared to disclose the disposition of His Majesty's ships.

Mr. Dugdale: As previously explained to the House, it is not in accordance with the policy of His Majesty's Government to disclose the present disposition of the Fleet. The considerations on which this policy is based apply equally to dispositions in the recent past.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that his answer involves an answer to the question: What does he mean by "the recent past"? Is it not a fact that history ends and security begins at the point where His Majesty's Government begin to be embarrassed?

Mr. Dugdale: While I am not prepared to try to dispute the hon. Gentleman's attempt at epigram, I would like to inform him that, so far as we are concerned, the recent past means since the end of the war.

Courts Martial

Mr. Donovan: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty what system of legal aid exists in the Navy comparable to that which prevails in the Army and Royal Air Force in the case of persons tried by court martial.

Mr. Dugdale: A scheme for the provision of professional defence for persons tried by court martial in the United Kingdom has been in operation in the Royal Navy since July, 1948. This scheme is comparable to that of the Army and Royal Air Force. Arrangements are being made to extend the scheme overseas.

Mr. Donovan: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the numbers of naval courts martial held in the years 1938, 1943 and 1948, respectively, distinguishing between those held at home and abroad.

Mr. Dugdale: In 1938, there were 36 naval courts martial, of which 14 were at home and 22 abroad. In 1943, there were 520 courts martial, but I regret that it is not possible without a disproportionate amount of work to distinguish between those held at home and abroad.


In 1948, there were 119 naval courts martial, of which 90 took place at home and 29 abroad.

Mr. Donovan: Do those figures include disciplinary courts?

Mr. Dugdale: No, Sir. There were disciplinary courts during the war. There were 237 of such courts in 1943.

Mr. Donovan: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty the legal qualifications required of a person acting as Judge Advocate at a naval court martial.

Mr. Dugdale: No legal qualifications are required under the Naval Discipline Act or the court martial regulations of the person appointed to officiate as Judge Advocate at a naval court martial. In practice, however, all officers selected for these duties have received a special legal training.

Mr. McGhee: Can the Minister say whether doctors have to qualify in the Navy?

Mr. Dugdale: That is quite another question.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Does not the Minister think that the time has come when such persons should have legal qualifications and that the officers who take part in those duties should have a legal training?

Mr. Dugdale: We are now going into that matter and we are in fact providing, at the public expense, legal training for officers, so that they may become legally qualified.

Oral Answers to Questions — R.M.S. "MAGDALENA"

Mr. Anthony Greenwood: asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty whether the plates of the R.M.S. "Magdalena" are riveted or welded.

The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Walter Edwards): The whole of the shell plating of the R.M.S. "Magdalena" was riveted and all deck beams, ship's side-frames and double-bottom floors were riveted to the plating. The plates for decks, bulkheads and tank tops were welded.

Mr. Greenwood: Was any departure allowed in regard to British standard rivets?

Mr. Edwards: I could not answer that question, but I can tell my hon. Friend that an inquiry is taking place under the Merchant Shipping Act, and that no doubt that point will come out in the report which is to be made to the Ministry of Transport.

Commander Noble: May I ask why this Question has been answered by the Admiralty?

Mr. Edwards: Because the Admiralty is the responsible Department for merchant shipbuilding.

Oral Answers to Questions — DECLARATIONS (SIGNATURES)

Mr. Sidney Shephard: asked the Prime Minister if he will issue instructions to all Government Departments that in cases where a declaration has to be signed by a responsible person Members of Parliament shall be empowered to sign.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I have been asked to reply. The hon. Member's Question is rather vague. There are, of course, many kinds of declarations on which the signature of a responsible person is required, and it is clear that these cannot all be covered by the same general rules. If, however, the hon. Member knows any instances where the signature of a Member of Parliament has not been accepted on such a declaration perhaps he would send my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister detailed information, and he will have the matter examined.

Mr. Shephard: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that even in regard to a disability pension, a schoolmaster or a police sergeant is empowered to sign the form as a responsible person, but not a Member of Parliament. Is not that an invidious distinction, carrying the reflection that Members of Parliament are not responsible people?

Mr. Morrison: If the hon. Gentleman will send those particulars to the Prime Minister he will have them examined. I would not like to answer dogmatically about them, on the spur of the moment. I remember that there are certain dis-


criminations about Members of Parliament in relation to the office of justice of the peace. However, if the hon. Gentleman will send those particulars to my right hon. Friend he will be glad to look into them.

Mr. Shephard: Would the right hon. Gentleman also look into the whole question affecting declarations made by supposedly responsible persons?

Mr. Skinnard: Would my right hon. Friend arrange that absolution be granted to those hon. Members who, like myself, have often signed forms of this kind in error?

Mr. Morrison: We will consider that point. We would agree that hon. Members are sometimes embarrassed by signing things.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a Member of Parliament who has retired from one of the Armed Forces cannot sign his own pension form as correct?

Mr. Morrison: I imagine that might be so.

Oral Answers to Questions — ARMED FORCES (FAMILY PENSION SCHEME)

Mr. J. H. Hare: asked the Minister of Defence whether the review of pensions to widows of officers of the three Services has now been completed.

Mr. Lipson: asked the Minister of Defence if the review of arrangements which will govern the award of pensions to widows of officers of the three Services has now been completed and if he is yet able to announce a substantial increase in their amount.

Sir J. Lucas: asked the Minister of Defence if he will now make an announcement with regard to the pensions for widows of officers of the three Services.

Brigadier Peto: asked the Minister of Defence what are the future arrangements which will govern the award of pensions to widows of officers of the three Services; and whether he will now make a statement.

Major Beamish: asked the Minister of Defence what has been the cause of the delay of more than a year, since an early statement was promised, governing

the terms of award of pensions to widows of the three Services; whether he is aware of the anxiety that this delay has caused; and if he will now make a full statement.

Mr. Keeling: asked the Minister of Defence whether he will now give the reply promised a year ago about pensions to widows of officers.

Commander Noble: asked the Minister of Defence whether he is yet in a position to make a statement on pensions to widows of officers of the three Services.

Mr. Shephard: asked the Minister of Defence if he has now concluded the review of officers widows' pensions announced on 12th May, 1948; and if he will make a statement.

Brigadier Medlicott: asked the Minister of Defence if he is now in a position to make the promised statement on pensions to officers' widows.

Lieut.-Commander Clark Hutchison: asked the Minister of Defence if he is now able to make a statement regarding the award of pensions to widows of officers.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: asked the Minister of Defence whether he has any statement to make about the rates of pension paid to officers' widows.

The Minister of Defence (Mr. A. V. Alexander): As hon. Members are aware, a review was initiated some time ago into the long established scheme of non-contributory pensions for the widows and orphans of regular members of the Armed Forces. While this review was in progress His Majesty's Government decided to promote a family pension scheme on a contributory basis for all established civil servants. In these circumstances, it became necessary in the interests of the Forces to consider a similar scheme, also contributory in character, for them, which would not, as in the past, be confined to the families of officers and warrant officers, first-class, but would embrace all ranks serving on pensionable engagements. Agreement has been given in principle to the introduction of such a new and comprehensive scheme for the Forces, and details are being worked out as quickly as possible.

Mr. Hare: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it was as long ago as 12th May, 1948, that his hon. Friend the Civil Lord said that a review affecting the


widows of officers in the Armed Forces was in an advanced stage, and that a statement would soon be made? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Government should have made some statement, and not have waited for more than a year before making the statement to which we have just listened?

Mr. Alexander: I think that my hon. Friend the Civil Lord was right when he said that the review which we have undertaken with regard to the existing scheme was fairly well advanced, but the review was overtaken by the proposal to have a much more comprehensive scheme upon a contributory basis, and that has accounted for the delay.

Mr. Lipson: May I ask when the people affected will be told what the pensions, will actually be? Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether it was really necessary that it should have taken so long to come to a decision?

Mr. Alexander: I think it was necessary, in view of the general interest of the Forces, once a scheme was to be adopted on a more general and comprehensive basis for the Civil Service, even though on a contributory basis, that the Services should be given at least equal consideration with the Civil Service.

Mr. Nicholson: When will the scheme come into being?

Mr. Alexander: I hope very soon. I do not want to fix the actual date because of the very varied conditions in the Forces compared with those of the Civil Service. There are different categories in the different Services, and differences with regard to retirement gratuities, compared with the Civil Service. It takes a lot of working out for the actuaries. I do not want to commit myself to a date, but I am pressing on with the matter as rapidly as possible.

Mr. Nicholson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in the meantime, very great hardship is being experienced by widows of officers who are living on extremely small pensions? Cannot something be done for them?

Mr. Alexander: That is rather a different matter. It is a matter of great interest to a large number of Members of Parliament and great sympathy is involved, but I would remind the House that the general question of the increase

of State pensions was dealt with by the House in the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1947. Questions as to existing rates of pensions contracted for under previous service, would have to be dealt with through that channel.

Mr. Nicholson: Can the right hon. Gentleman hold out any hope in the matter?

Mr. Alexander: That involves more branches of pensions than Service pensions and such questions should be addressed to the Treasury.

Sir J. Lucas: Will the scheme apply to existing widows as well as to those who become widows after this comes into effect?

Mr. Alexander: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to my last answer.

Mr. Keeling: Would it not have been better if the very categorical promise given a year ago had been modified earlier, instead of the present announcement having to be elicited by putting down a Question?

Mr. Alexander: It was in the best interest of the Services and in the interest of backing up conditions and recruitment in the future to follow the course we have done.

Commander Pursey: Is it not the case that hitherto there have been no pensions whatever for "other ranks" and that it is of the utmost importance that for the first time in the history of the Services, "other ranks" are included in the scheme and pensions paid to their widows?

Mr. Alexander: I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend. The only "other rank" previously included was the warrant officer, first-class.

Professor Savory: Has the right hon. Gentleman gone into the figures which show the totally inadequate pensions received by these widows, who are suffering, as I know personally, very great hardship because they cannot make ends meet on their pensions?

Mr. Alexander: I have already explained that these pensions were generally reviewed under the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1947. They fall to be dealt with on the general basis of State pensions covered by such legislation and they must be dealt with through that channel.

General Sir George Jeffreys: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the increase under the Pensions (Increase) Act, 1947, was totally inadequate and did not meet what the various beneficiaries thought were their rights?

Mr. Alexander: I have already said that questions on that general basis should be addressed to the Treasury.

Mr. Lipson: In view of the length of time taken to deal with this matter, will the right hon. Gentleman consider making the increases retrospective from a reasonable date?

Mr. Alexander: As a Service Minister I am always anxious to get retrospective dates, but it is not so easy to do that.

Mr. Nicholson: Will the right hon. Gentleman at any rate find out for himself, and inform the House, the date when the existing rates of pensions were fixed? He will find that it was many years ago.

Mr. Alexander: I speak only from memory, but I believe the last revision before 1947 was about 1920.

BILLS PRESENTED

AIRWAYS CORPORATIONS BILL,

"To provide for the merger of the British South American Airways Corporation with the British Overseas Airways Corporation; to authorise the appointment of an additional deputy chairman of the British Overseas Airways Corporation; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid," presented by Mr. Lindgren; supported by Mr. Herbert Morrison, the Attorney-General and Mr. Glenvil Hall; read the First time; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 123.]

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE (AMENDMENT) BILL,

"To amend the National Health Service Act, 1946, and the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, 1947, and otherwise to amend the law in relation to services provided under the said Acts," presented by Mr. Bevan; supported by Mr. Woodburn, Mr. Blenkinsop and Mr. J. J. Robertson; read the First time; to be read a Second time To-morrow, and to be printed. [Bill 127.]

Orders of the Day — IRELAND BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

3.34 p.m.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Attlee): I have it in command from the King to acquaint the House that His Majesty places his Prerogative and Interests so far as concerns the matters dealt with by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament.
I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
The Bill arises from the decision of the Government of Eire to leave the British Commonwealth. This decision has now been carried into effect. It is a decision which, I think, we all regret but which Eire had a perfect right to make under the provisions of the Statute of Westminster. We have, therefore, to regularise the position. As the House is aware, this announcement was made by the Prime Minister of Eire in the course of a visit he was paying to Canada. It came without any particular notice to us, but I thought that this was a matter which concerned other Commonwealth countries and I took the opportunity of the presence of representatives of Canada, Australia and New Zealand to discuss the position with them and with representatives of the Eire Government.
The representatives of the Commonwealth countries were over here for the Prime Ministers' Conference. Those are the three countries of the Commonwealth which have considerable populations of Irish descent and they are the countries which, after the United Kingdom, have the closest ties of all Commonwealth countries with Eire. We discussed the position in all its aspects with them and with Eire's representatives in the most friendly and co-operative spirit. Our friends from overseas were most helpful and played a very constructive part in all our talks. We all desired to arrive at a practical solution of a very difficult question. We had to take into account among other difficulties our propinquity to Eire, the long-standing relations between our people and the practical difficulties that flow from any attempt to treat Eire as altogether a foreign country. I think these difficulties were very present in the minds of all of us.
As everybody knows, there are in Britain large numbers of people of Irish descent, some born in Eire and some born in this country, and there is a continual passage to and fro of people who come over to work or to study or for pleasure. It would be an extremely difficult thing to decide in every case from day to day as to what the exact status was of a person with an Irish name, and if we had had to attempt to make all citizens of Eire aliens, it would have involved a great expenditure of men and money and a great extension of the control of aliens. We had in particular also to remember the difficulties caused because of the fact of the land frontier between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, and Eire.
We therefore came to the conclusion that we should reciprocally decide that the people of Eire and the people of Britain should not be foreign to one another. Indeed, I go further. The same action may be taken by other Commonwealth countries. I do not pretend that the solution at which we arrived is completely logical—very few things in the relationship between these islands have been completely logical—but I believe they are practical and I believe that they are to our mutual benefit. I am aware, of course, that hitherto there has been this division in international law—it has come down from the past—in which one has recognised people as either belonging or foreign, but international law is made for men, not men for international law. We are moving into a time when various other relationships are being created. Therefore we thought this was the most practical solution.
I should now like to look at the actual proposals of the Bill. In Clause 1 Parliament is asked to recognise that the part of Ireland known as Eire ceases to be part of His Majesty's Dominions, and by Clause 2 (1) it is laid down that this part of Ireland shall be known officially as the Republic of Ireland. I understand that some hon. Members object to this nomenclature; they hold that it implies that the Republic extends to the whole area of the island. In this Bill we make it clear that this is not so. The fact is that the name "The Republic of Ireland" is that selected by the Irish Government. It has been embodied in

their legislation, and when any country adopts a name it is really a matter for that country alone—

Professor Savory: No.

The Prime Minister: I think it is.

Professor Savory: It affects another country.

The Prime Minister: I know, but the hon. Member was given certain names at his baptism and it would be quite improper for me to call him out of his name. The same thing applies to a country. One cannot, in international relations, habitually refer to a country by some other name than that by which it claims to be known, and it would be quite impossible for us, at all events in a statute, to adopt a different name.
Clause 1 (1, b), declares the existing position of Northern Ireland. It is entirely consistent with the statement which I made in this House on 28th October, 1948. My statement then was as follows:
The view of His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom has always been that no change should be made in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland without Northern Ireland's free agreement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th October, 1948; Vol. 457, c. 239.]
I have received representations from the Government of Eire and I have noted speeches that were made yesterday in the Dail. [An HON. MEMBER: "Deplorable."] I am very much surprised. [An HON. MEMBER: "Shocking."] My original statement was received without protest, and I cannot understand why the Clause should seem to evoke a great deal of opposition and heated protest. I am bound to say that I think these protests are based on a misapprehension. It seems to be suggested that this is a new declaration by His Majesty's Government affirming the permanence of partition, but actually the initiative did not come from this side. It is the action of the Eire Government itself in deciding to leave the Commonwealth that has made it quite inevitable that a declaration as to the position of that part of Ireland which is continuing in the Commonwealth should be made.
Eire Ministers in speeches have declared the unity of Ireland. There may be something of a spiritual unity, but we have to deal with facts as they are. The adoption of the title "Republic of Ireland," as I have said, seems to


many people to be an assertion of this claim, but this Bill deals with the actual facts of the situation. It recognises, therefore, that the part of Ireland heretofore known as Eire ceases to be part of the Commonwealth, but it is a natural corollary to declare that Northern Ireland remains part of the Commonwealth and of the United Kingdom, and will not cease to be so without the consent of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.
I have heard criticism of the words used here, "The Parliament of Northern Ireland." It has been suggested that this is in some sense an amplification of the words which I used in November. I really cannot agree to that. We recognise the authority of the Parliament of Eire, now the Republic of Ireland, to act on behalf of the people of Eire in carrying out their decision to leave the Commonwealth and we do not look behind that. We recognise equally the right of the Parliament of Northern Ireland to decide on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland to stay in or leave the United Kingdom and Commonwealth.
I note that Mr. Costello stated in the Dail that the question of partition was raised at the Chequers Conference; that is the Conference I referred to which we had with other Prime Ministers and representatives of Commonwealth countries. It was only raised in this sense, that it was agreed that this was not a matter for discussion at that Conference; though it was, of course, intimated by representatives of Eire that they had this matter very much in mind, it was not discussed, and it really is not raised in this Bill except insofar as this Bill necessarily recognises the status quo.
I think that it was obvious to anybody who thought on these subjects that the action of the Government of Eire in deciding to leave the Commonwealth would increase the difficulty of arriving at any agreement on the partition question, and I naturally took the opportunity of pointing this out. I do not intend to deal at any length this afternoon with the partition question. That would be harking back to old unhappy days, days before all of us but a mere handful were in this House. We have to deal with the position as it exists. However, the Government of Eire decided to proceed with taking these steps to leave the Commonwealth, and I pointed out to

them that this would inevitably make more difficulties in arriving at their other objective, the unification of Ireland, and I had to conclude that the Government of Eire considered the cutting of the last tie which united Eire to the British Commonwealth as a more important objective of policy than ending partition. It is not for me to criticise this choice, but I am bound to say that it is not the Government of the United Kingdom but the Government of the Republic of Ireland which has, to use Mr. Costello's words,
tightened the ligature fastened around the body of Ireland.
As the House knows, we took a decision recently to retain within the Commonwealth the Republic of India, and no one would wish that any country should be forced to leave the Commonwealth against its will. If that was so with regard to India, it is certainly so with regard to Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and it is quite impossible that we should take up a position which would suggest that Northern Ireland should be excluded from the Commonwealth and United Kingdom against its will. I repeat, therefore, that this paragraph in the Clause has been rendered necessary by the action of the Eire Government, an action of which I do not complain.
Clause 2 (1) declares that the Republic of Ireland shall not be a foreign country. I admit at once that this is a novel conception. I admit that hitherto there has been this straight division between countries which were foreign and countries which were not foreign. I admit we are introducing a new category. Here is a country which is outside allegiance, outside the British Commonwealth, but which is not to be held as foreign. I have already stated the reasons for this. Clause 2 (2) deals with a minor point which I need not discuss at any length; that is, the position of the representative over here of the Republic of Ireland.
Clause 3 deals particularly with the position under the British Nationality Act, 1948, and I shall, therefore, discuss that and Clause 2 (1) together. There has been a good deal of argument in the Press and in another place about the position of Eire citizens after 18th April. It may be worth while recapitulating briefly the history of the British Nationality Act.


That Act embodied an agreement reached by Commonwealth countries at a conference in 1947. Briefly, the effect of this agreement was that the principle hitherto generally accepted—namely, that a person was a British subject first and, in addition, could be a citizen of a particular Commonwealth country—was replaced by a scheme under which—again, speaking broadly, I do not want to go into legal technicalities—citizenship in a particular Commonwealth country was the qualification for being a British subject. Thus, if a person was a citizen of Australia he was, by virtue of this, a British subject. But the Eire Government was not willing that all Eire citizens should automatically be British subjects and the Act, therefore, made special provision for Eire citizens.
There are three points which might be noted. Section 3 (2) of that Act ensured that any law in force on 1st January, 1949—the date when the Act came into operation—shall apply to Eire citizens as to British subjects. In other words, an Eire citizen in the United Kingdom gets automatically the same treatment under our existing laws as if he were a British subject; if he is resident here he can vote and he is liable for military service. Section 2 (1) enables an Eire citizen who for reasons of sentiment wishes to remain a British subject and not merely to be treated as if he were a British subject, to write to the Home Secretary claiming to do so on the grounds, broadly speaking, of his associations with the United Kingdom or the Colonies.
Section 6 enables an Eire citizen who is ordinarily resident here or is in Crown Service and who wants to take the further step of actually becoming a "citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies" to apply to be registered as such. All these provisions are reaffirmed in Clause 3 (1) of the Bill. There should, therefore, be no doubt whatever that they are still in force. I think this settles the difficulties that bothered Lord Simon in another place and Mr. Serjeant Sullivan in the columns of the Press.
I might add, for the interest of the House, what has happened since that law came into force on 1st January, 1949. About 7,000 notices have been received and acknowledged by the Home Office. I

might again, for I know there is a lot of interest in this, state what is the position. Broadly speaking, a person is a citizen of Eire (i) if he was born in Eire after 1922, or, if born outside Eire, is the son of an Eire citizen and was born after 1922; (ii) if he was born in one of the 26 counties before 1922 and was domiciled there in 1922; and (iii) if he is registered as an Eire citizen. Section 3 (2) of the British Nationality Act, which provides that laws in force on 1st January, 1949, shall apply to citizens of Eire as to British subjects, makes citizens of Eire who are resident in the United Kingdom liable for military service. As a matter of fact, those two Acts came into force on the same day.
But citizens of Eire are not liable to military service until they have been in Great Britain for at least two years. They do not become liable even then if they are resident only for a course of education or some other temporary purpose. Those who are liable and raise any objection on the ground of nationality are given the chance of returning to Eire if they prefer to do that instead of performing their military service.
It may be noted here that citizens or nationals of any part of His Majesty's Dominions outside Great Britain are also liable for military service if they have been in Great Britain for at least two years and are not here merely for some temporary purpose. The House may like to know what has been the effect hitherto. I cannot say exactly how many Eire citizens have been affected by the call-up or how many of them returned home as an alternative to the call-up, but there have been in all only about 80 cases of disputed liability since 1st January, 1949. In fact, only three men so far have stated a wish to return to Eire as an alternative to being called up. So much on that point.
The Eire Prime Minister has stated that the Eire Government wished to continue the exchange with Commonwealth countries of comparable rights and privileges in respect of citizenship. In the past, British subjects have received certain privileges by virtue of an order made under the Eire Aliens Act exempting them from certain requirements imposed on aliens, but since January of this year, in pursuance of the policy agreed at Paris, the Eire Government have granted these rights positively to


United Kingdom citizens by an order made under the Eire Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1935; and the Eire Prime Minister stated in November that it was the Eire Government's intention to review their whole nationality law in the near future to bring before the Dail a new Bill in which provision would be made to ensure that Commonwealth citizens were afforded by statute rights comparable with those afforded to Eire citizens in Commonwealth countries. I would call attention to the word "comparable"; "comparable" is not the same as "identical."
Clause 3 (2) of the Bill provides that, where United Kingdom or Colonial legislation contains expressions such as "His Majesty's dominions" or "British ships," which would have covered the Republic of Ireland or its ships had not the Republic of Ireland Act been passed, these expressions will continue to cover the Republic of Ireland or its ships until Parliament, or whatever other authority is responsible for the legislation, makes provision to the contrary. By Clause 4 (2) this provision is continued to cover any legislation passed up to 31st December, 1949. Thus it will be unnecessary to amend past or current legislation by inserting specific references to the Republic of Ireland, but, after 1st January, 1950, any United Kingdom legislation which is intended to apply to the Republic of Ireland will have to say so specifically.
There are minor points—mainly, minor points of adjustment—that might be raised, but I think the only other thing to which I need really call attention is Clause 5. As the House remembers, under the Representation of the People Act, 1948, the qualifying period for a person to be entitled to vote as an elector at the election of a person to be a Member of this House was reduced to merely the residence on the qualifying date, and that applied to Northern Ireland. Prior to that the period was six months. The Bill proposes that in Northern Ireland there shall be a qualifying period of three months; the reason for this is entirely a practical one. Owing to the contiguity of Eire and Northern Ireland, with an open frontier, it would be perfectly possible for persons to cross the border and qualify in Northern Ireland as electors, although they were really resident in Eire; they could go across to stay with an uncle, an aunt or a cousin for that

day and then go back. There is, therefore, having regard to that open frontier, a reasonable claim for a provision of this kind.
It has been suggested that under the proposals of this Bill the Republic of Ireland, although outside the Commonwealth, is obtaining all the advantages of membership. This is not so. That is greatly to under-estimate the advantages of belonging to the Commonwealth and the close consultation and mutual support which belongs to members. While we have the utmost goodwill to the Republic of Ireland, their position must and will remain different from those who actually belong to the Commonwealth. There is one final point. That is as to when the Bill comes into force. It is retrospective to 18th April, 1949, which is the date of the corresponding legislation in Dublin.
I very much hope that in the course of this Debate we shall all exercise the utmost restraint on this old and vexed question. I repeat, it has not been raised by us. We have every desire to go forward in the friendliest possible relations with the people and the Government of the Irish Republic. This Bill is necessitated by their action and their initiative, with which we do not quarrel, but I think it is wholly unjustifiable to charge this Government with having taken action hostile to the Republic of Ireland. We have taken only the action that was the necessary result of their action and I repudiate entirely the idea that there is here any assertion of an attempt to deal with the internal affairs of Southern Ireland. We have put in this Bill what we believe is a reasonable, practical proposal for dealing with a difficult situation and for making quite clear what is the existing position, and that position as between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland must remain until it is altered by mutual agreement.

4.2 p.m.

Mr. Eden: The House will feel, I think, that the Prime Minister has given a balanced and an objective account of the proposals which are embodied in this Bill. As he said at the outset, there are now very few Members in this House who remember the days of the heated Irish controversies and still fewer who sat, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) sat, with Irish


Members in the days before the Treaty of 1921. But this House as a whole, whatever their memories, does not, I believe, feel itself to be violently partisan on these Irish issues. I certainly do not feel myself to be so. Indeed, in our hearts there are probably few things we would rather see than a steadily growing friendship between all sections of the Irish people. A little while back I had hopes that this was to come about. Now, for a variety of reasons, some of which the Prime Minister has dealt with, these hopes seem to be prematurely disappointed.
As the Prime Minister said, we should try to make our speeches with the minimum of provocation. That, of course, does not mean that we should not say what we think. This Bill presented by the Prime Minister and to which the House is invited to give a Second Reading, recognises the secession from the Commonwealth and Empire of the country we used to call Eire and which we are now invited to call the Republic of Ireland. Historically, this Bill stands in much the same relationship to the new Republic as did the Treaty of Versailles in 1783 to the American Colonies as they then were, the United States of America as they now are, and the Burma Independence Act of 1947 to Burma.
Therefore, it is not an occasion for rejoicing. No one on this side of the House, any more than on the other side of the House, questions the right of the Republic of Ireland to secede, if it be her will, from the Commonwealth—although I do feel, despite the Prime Minister's explanation, that the Republic in Ireland, or, if it is preferred, the Irish Republic, seems a rather more accurate and descriptive title than that which the Irish Government have chosen themselves.
The association of the States of the British Commonwealth is essentially a voluntary one. If one of its members elects to go, we regret the departure, but we do not seek to bar the way. But, in spite of the decision of the Irish Republic to leave the Commonwealth, we are not by this Bill to treat the new Republic as a foreign country. That is something which is certainly original and, although that Government is unable even to recognise the Crown, in the words of

the agreed statement of the recent Imperial Conference,
as the symbol of the free association of the independent member nations,
we are still to confer upon her citizens the important and, I think, proud benefits that are the heritage of all British subjects. The Prime Minister argued today—and I cannot dispute it—that the special relationship existing between our two countries and the constant coming and going of citizens between Ireland and the United Kingdom would make it ridiculous for either country to treat the people of the other as aliens, if by any reasonable means that can be avoided. From that view I do not dissent and we on these benches, for this and other stronger reasons to which I shall refer in a moment, give our broad support to the Bill.
The Bill, nevertheless, does contain some inconsistencies. It assumes in fact that the Republican Government in Dublin did not really intend the natural consequences of their own action in repealing the External Relations Act of 1936. It is true that the repeal of that Act makes a very little practical difference, but it is the last and, because it is the last, the most serious, of a long series of unilateral abrogations of the 1921 Treaty. One by one each bond has been snapped—the oath of allegiance. the authority of the Privy Council, the duties and, finally, the office of the Governor General. All these have gone and in 1937 a new constitution for what was then Eire came into force, and in that constitution the Crown had no part.
None the less, because that Act existed—the External Relations Act—the United Kingdom Government of the day. of which I was a member, were able, acting with the Governments of the Dominions, to declare that they would not treat the new constitution as excluding Eire from the British Commonwealth. On 18th April, Easter Monday of this year, the last bond of contact as far as the Republic of Ireland was concerned, was broken and, without special legislation, their citizens would have become aliens, not only here, but it seems, in all parts of the Commonwealth. It is true that by the provisions of the British Nationality Act, citizens of Eire, whether or not they are British subjects, were to


be treated under our law as though they were British subjects.
But that Act was passed before Parliament was aware of the intentions of Mr. Costello's Government to repeal the 1936 Act, and it was never suggested at any time in those Debates, either in this House, or in another place, that we were enacting legislation which would still have effect after Eire had left the Commonwealth. Yet to some at any rate it seemed that the provisions of that Act might provide a ready-made solution of the problem which was created some months afterwards by Eire's departure from the Commonwealth. But the problem was not so simple as all that, as the declaration by Lord Simon in another place and letters in the Press have shown. The main point at issue was whether the British Nationality Act, which applied to the citizens of the Dominion of Eire so long as they were in the Commonwealth, could be equally valid in its application in regard to citizens of the Republic of Ireland.
This Bill seeks to clear up those matters. In one of its Clauses it declares that the operation of the British Nationality Act is not affected by the secession, and so we are invited to note that a citizen of the Republic of Ireland remains entitled to the rights of a British subject. That is not an insignificant privilege which we are conferring upon these men and women. It includes the right to vote in our elections, to be a Member of this House, to hold a position in the Civil Service and to be sworn of His Majesty's Privy Council—these and many other important and responsible rights. And with rights go duties. In particular, while there is conscription in this country there is the duty of military service. A clear ruling on this matter was given by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations last November, and I do not propose to quote it now. I welcome the Prime Minister's confirmation of that statement in his speech this afternoon.
I have no desire to argue the relative merits of reciprocal benefits as between this country and the new Republic, though there might be quite a lot which could be said on that topic. None the less, at least the appearance of reciprocity should be there. I hope that the Lord President of the Council will, when he

replies tonight, be able to tell us a little more about that than the Prime Minister was able to do in his opening speech. Is the Lord President satisfied, for instance, that the reciprocal terms to be offered by the Government of the Irish Republic will contain no conditions regarding the status of Northern Ireland?
There is another question with which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will deal. Have the Government any information to give the House on the question of similar legislation in the Dominions. It may be that the most unusual—indeed, so far as I know, unprecedented—wording of the phrase with which this Bill is introduced is related to this matter. I do not know whether the House has noted that wording, but after the usual Preamble, "Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty …," we find the words "Parliament hereby…declares…" I do not think that I have ever seen those words before. I can find no precedent for their use. It is very odd wording, which is in marked contrast to that used in the Burma Independence Act. It may be an attempt to preserve the rights of Dominion legislatures, I do not know. If that is not so, I should like to know what is the significance of that wording? The Prime Minister will realise the importance of the matter because, for the first time, there is no mention there of the King's position but Parliament is separately mentioned. I do not recall ever having seen that before.
The Bill makes no reference to the taking of an Oath of Allegiance. This is clearly a difficult matter but a most important one. When the Lord President replies, will he deal with the position of the holders of those offices or appointments which require such an oath to be taken? What, for example, is the position of an Irish soldier in the Regular Forces, or of an Irishman whom it is proposed to admit as a Freeman of the City of London, as many of them have, with distinction, been admitted in the past; or of an elected Parliamentary candidate who may feel that the taking of the Oath of Allegiance conflicts with his loyalty to his own republican country?

Mr. McGovern: Brendan Bracken.

Mr. Eden: So far as I know my right hon. Friend's loyalties are never conflicting.
Finally, on a broader issue, can we be assured that what we are proposing to enact in this Measure shall in no way be taken as a precedent for our dealings with any other part of the Common. wealth? The main, indeed we think the only, justification for this Bill is that Ireland is a unique case. I hope, therefore, that the Lord President can give us tonight the reassurances for which we ask.
I now turn to the question of Northern Ireland. This Bill, in its first Clause, gives a pledge which I shall not repeat, which the Prime Minister quoted. We know, of course, that such a pledge cannot bind a future Parliament, or indeed this Parliament. Nevertheless we support and welcome this pledge, and it is perhaps desirable that the Conservative Party should once again make clear its attitude towards this issue. If union between North and South Ireland is to come about, it must do so not by force or by threats of force but by agreement and by Parliamentary and democratic means. It would really be fantastic that anyone could suppose that we should invite Northern Ireland to leave the British Commonwealth against her will, or even that we should wish her to do so.
Such a course would be unthinkable, if only on the grounds of gratitude. After all, for all of us the recollection of Northern Ireland's contribution in this last conflict is linked with that of the Mersey and the Clyde, and it is unthinkable that we should do these things. Ulster must be entirely free to take her own decision at any time. We must uphold her right to do that against threats from whatever quarter and in whatever form. That, I understand, is also the Government's view. Until there is a change in the relations between the North and the South it is clear that so far as external relations are concerned, which of course includes defence, the Six Counties are an integral part of the United Kingdom. I feel sure that the Prime Minister will endorse that too. I see he does.
The House will be aware of the protests in Southern Ireland and of the Motion passed yesterday in the Dail against this Measure. I must say that,

like the Prime Minister, I find this agitation very hard to understand. In reading the speeches made in the Dail yesterday, my main reflection was one of regret that the spokesmen of the Government and of the Opposition there seemed determined to ignore the realities of the situation. It is suggested that Britain is occupying Northern Ireland and that the departure of British troops from Northern Ireland could itself contribute to a solution of the problem. Of course, it would do nothing of the kind. The issue arises not because there may be a British battalion or two in Northern Ireland but because the people of the Six Counties have repeatedly made it clear, by large majorities, that they do not wish to be incorporated in the Irish Republic.

Mr. Mulvey: What about the third of the people in the Border Counties who are anxious to be reunited with the rest of the nation?

Mr. Eden: I have here all the figures—I do not wish to weary the House with them, but the hon. Member can look at the figures for the last Northern Ireland election or for the election to this House, or any other election. He may say that he does not believe any figures that come out of Northern Ireland. That is one of the factors that makes discussion of the Irish question so singularly difficult. It is impossible to sidestep that issue. I would say to the hon. Gentleman that what might in time produce a modification of this situation, and might indeed have produced a modification before now, would be a policy of understanding by the South towards the North, even a policy of cherishing and wooing. Instead of that, it must be admitted that both the actions and the words of the present Government in Eire have only served to make a solution more difficult to arrive at.

Mr. Mulvey: For 25 years advances of friendship have been made to the North in the desire to get them into a united Ireland, but without result.

Mr. Eden: I am anxious to keep myself on an even keel, and I hope that the hon. Member will permit me to stay there. I was about to say that Mr. Costello yesterday accused the British Government—this rather made me smile—of introducing this Bill to snatch for themselves some sort of advantage over the Tory Opposition. Well, I should


not have thought that there is very much in that one.
On the other hand, it seems to me that this situation has been largely precipitated by a spirit of competition in Irish internal politics. Each has been so desperately anxious to get hold of the other fellow's clothes, and as a result both sides have appeared to fail to notice the inevitable consequences here of their actions and their declarations, particularly in repealing the 1936 Act. After all, what does this Bill do with regard to Northern Ireland? It does no more than put into the Bill the pledge, twice repeated in this House by the Prime Minister and endorsed by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition.
I see that the Prime Minister of Eire said in his speech that the Irish Government had no knowledge of what was intended until 5th May of this year. I can hardly think that can be right, but I hope that the Lord President will tell us about that in his reply. When was the Eire Government first warned that, as a result of their action in repealing the 1936 Act, a Bill in this Parliament would be necessary? A few months ago Mr. McBride made a speech here in London, I think it was at Chatham House. He said there were two sources of friction between his country and ours, the Crown and partition. I should have thought that a view of the Crown which regarded it as a source of friction would be, to say the least, no particular inducement to the people of Ulster to consider linking their destiny with that of Southern Ireland.

Professor Savory: He said the Crown was an irritant.

Mr. Eden: I have termed it "friction." I have the words here if my hon. Friend would like to read them. But it certainly is true, that the breaking of the last link with the Crown and so with the Commonwealth is finally recognised in this Bill, but the difficulties which arise from the partition of Ireland still remain; and it is the action of this new Republic in repudiating any contact with the Commonwealth that has widened and deepened the gulf between the North and the South. That is the situation. It calls for statesmanship from Dublin and from Belfast. It really is beside the point for Dublin—having by its own action

repealed the Act of 1936 and thus placed the Government of this country in the position that they must introduce a Bill—to go on complaining that it is all the fault of London. That really is rather too Irish for words.
I do not propose to go into any of the wider aspects of defence or foreign relations. Surely no one could doubt where Irish support would lie in the present rivalry of ideologies which exists in the world. A time may come, and I hope it will come, when the new Republic is able to play a part in the regional arrangements now being formed to buttress peace. But it would be most unwise if the Irish Republic sought to make support of those policies conditional in any way on concessions regarding the constitution of Northern Ireland. It is indeed true that many mistakes have been made in the past by politicians of both parties, in both countries, in respect of Irish affairs. It is perhaps understandable that some bitterness should still linger, but this Bill should be, in a sense, the end of an era.
It is not all that we had hoped for, that many had worked for; but if it be the wish of the people of the Irish Republic, we accept this Bill. They must also accept those rights and duties in the spirit in which they are offered in the Bill. Let them eschew force or the threat of force in order to attain their remaining desire. If they would do that and take their part in the free community of nations, then perhaps after all this may not be the end of a book of imperial history, but the beginning of a fresh and lasting relationship between the United Kingdom and the new Republic of Ireland. We all wish that to be so, but the answer cannot be given at Westminster; it must be given in Dublin.

4.25 p.m.

Mr. William Wells: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) have both pleaded for temperate language in this Debate; and I do not suppose that there is any hon. Member in this House, whatever his politics or his origin, who will differ from them in that respect. As both the right hon. Gentlemen who have spoken have said, this Bill makes some very important constitutional innovations which may lead to some very interesting legal results. But it is not for this reason


only that this House is interested in them. The essence of the matter is contained in Clause 1 (1, b) of the Bill, which deals with the position of Northern Ireland, and it is therefore that Clause with which I, and I imagine most other speakers who follow me, will deal.
If one excludes that Clause for the moment, if one were to look at the rest of the Bill without that Clause, there is one thing with which every responsible man would agree—that this Bill is not actuated by any hostility to Southern Irishmen or the State of Eire. On the other hand, excluding that Clause, one would say that it is a most generous and magnamimous Measure in which we in this House, and particularly the Government, have gone to considerable lengths to strain the ordinary meaning of the term "nationality" in order to give Irish citizens, whom we all respect and like, the same freedom of movement and the same freedom to take part in our public and private life after the secession of the Republic of Ireland from the Commonwealth as before that—to most of us—unhappy event. It is in those circumstances that I was rather astonished that language of the kind used in the Dail yesterday about this particular Clause 1 (1, b) of the Bill should have been employed.
I speak as one who is not an Irishman, but who, if I were an Irishman, for every conceivable reason would sympathise and take sides with the South rather than the North. If, therefore, a person in my position finds himself able to support the Bill, I do not think that the Irish Government, or the Irish Parliament, should lightly throw out the kind of challenges that were issued last night. What is the truth of this position? No hon. Member would disagree that there is in Northern Ireland a community with strongly marked characteristics and ideas different from the Southern Irish. There is, in fact, a racial and religious minority. There is no reason, of course—and I hope that in some future and happier time it may come to pass—why the two should not be reconciled and live together within the same State.

Mr. Gallacher: If in relation to the whole of Ireland there is a Protestant minority in the North, there is a Catholic minority within it, so that

the hon. Gentleman's argument for partition for the Protestant minority in the North is also an argument for partition for the Catholic minority within it. That makes the thing ridiculous.

Mr. Wells: The hon. Gentleman has not apprehended my point. No doubt it was my fault. The argument I was seeking to use was simply that I should hope that although there was a Protestant majority in Northern Ireland now, and a Catholic minority, at some future time they will all live together within the State of Ireland, call it what we will. That is my hope. I do not believe that Eire's treatment of the Protestants gives any genuine grounds for supposing that at some future time that might not happen. But that is not the issue with which we are dealing today.
The issue which we are considering is whether or not, as a result of Eire's action in seceding from the Commonwealth we should give some assurance to this racial and religious minority in the North. Most hon. Members will have had circullars inviting them to discountenance this Clause and to say that the only proper course to take in this House in the name of democratic procedure is to let all the people in Ireland vote together at once and to abide by the result. That argument, which has been put forward by various Irish associations seems merely to travesty the meaning of democracy. It appears to be based on some concept of a united Ireland which amounts to this: that whenever we get a mass of ground surrounded by sea, all the people within that mass of ground must submit to the will of the majority there. On those grounds I imagine that all the people of North America would have to submit to a regime under which they would be governed by South America—or vice versa, according to whichever part had a majority.
In order to have a State, in order to apply this kind of argument which has come to us from Southern Ireland, there must be some sort of community. That sort of community does not exist in Ireland today. Therefore, we cannot apply, or we should not seek to apply, that kind of reasoning to the problem. Having established the position that there is a minority, is this racial and religious minority entitled to some form of protection against absorption? Ever since


the 1918 war, it has been a more or less recognised principle of international life that where we find a minority of that kind some sort of protection should be afforded it. That is a very wholesome principle, for, had it not been given effect to and recognised by both parties, for instance, in the settlement of India and Pakistan, none could tell what disasters would have occurred. When there is a minority of that kind, it has some claim for some form of protection.
Has this minority any claim on us to protect it? Those who say that it has not, that we should stand aside and ignore it, seem to me not only to be disregarding law and legal and treaty obligations, but also to be disregarding common sense. It is impossible that we could disregard history; that we could plant as we did—wrongly perhaps—300 years ago a Protestant English and Scottish community in the North of Ireland; that we should protect it for several centuries; that we should draw great benefits from its services, and that then we should turn round at this moment of time, when those in Northern Ireland have perhaps rendered us more signal service than at any other time in their history and say, "Thank you. The people in the South now do not want to have anything to do with us. Therefore, in the sacred name of democracy. we must leave you alone." In my view the Government in Ulster were entitled to ask for some kind of assurance, and if they asked us we were bound to give it.
The question then arises whether the kind of protection given by this Clause is the right type of protection to afford. That is a question which I find some little difficulty in answering. I think that on constitutional and legal grounds the answer which the Prime Minister gave, that in view of the previous obligations, previous Acts, it was inevitable that this kind of protection should be given, is unanswerable. Subsection 1 (b) of Clause 1 states:
Parliament hereby—
(b) declares that Northern Ireland remains part of His Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom and affirms that in no event will Northern Ireland or any part thereof cease to be part of His Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom without the consent of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.

The words, "or any part thereof" cause me a little concern. I should have thought that it was common ground that there was a strong Southern Irish and Catholic minority in the counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh at least, and I believe that in parts of those counties that strong Catholic minority is converted into an overwhelming majority. I should have thought that it was perhaps politically unfortunate, however constitutionally and legally necessary, that we should have to write just this kind of guarantee into the Bill at this time.
I agree profoundly with what has been said by the Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington, that we could not force any community which wishes to remain in the Commonwealth to leave it. We cannot do that. By this Clause it appears to me that we are doing no more than affirming that obligation to allow those who have lived with us within the Commonwealth before to continue so to do if they wish. To me, as to many of my hon. Friends on this side of the House, many of the features of the Government of Northern Ireland are repulsive, and one cannot but feel a strong sympathy for those who, belonging to the local Catholic and Irish minority, have so many restrictions and regulations, a sort of police State, imposed upon them.

Sir Ronald Ross: What are they?

Mr. Wells: I should be happy if I had more time at my disposal to try to deal with that, but I do not think the hon. Gentleman would dissent from what I am about to say. I believe that, if the regulations and restrictions are obnoxious, as some of them are, it is the attitude of the Southern Irish which, to some extent, imposes their necessity, or, if it does not impose their necessity, at least provides some superficial justification for their retention. However right it may be to give this kind of protection and this assurance now, when, as I hope will soon be the fact, the present controversies have passed, I trust the Government will devise some means of persuading the Government of Northern Ireland to liberalise their institutions.
It would be sad to think that partition was bound to last for ever, but I repeat


that we have no moral duty to compel this Northern Irish community to secede from us against their will, and for these reasons I support the Bill. There is one note on which I think it is perhaps right for a back bencher on this side of the House to conclude. It is that, if the Government of Ireland and our friends in Southern Ireland wish us to listen more favourably to the representations they make to us in the future, I trust that they will discontinue the kind of propaganda which they have put forth against this Bill. We will not be coerced by threats, and, although it is unfortunately true that, owing to mistakes in our policy in the past, we have been in the position where we have, in fact, appeared to yield to threats, the position that gave rise to that no longer obtains.
We were, I think, in a morally weak position in Ireland before 1921. I believe that, by this Bill we are passing today, we are putting the shoe entirely on the other foot, and I would hope that, after this immediate controversy subsides, those who expressed themselves so intemperately in the Dail yesterday will pause to think and will express themselves in a more temperate fashion in future.

4.44 p.m.

Sir Hugh O'Neill: I said in this House last Autumn, when the decision of Southern Ireland to become an independent republic was announced, that I considered it a disaster. I still so consider it, and I believe that its repercussions on the structure of the British Commonwealth of Nations may have far-reaching and injurious effects. Ireland is one of the mother countries of the Empire, and the secession of a large part of it is bound to have a profound effect throughout the Commonwealth.
This Bill recognises that secession, and it recognises that Southern Ireland has ceased to be a part of His Majesty's Dominions. She has not, like India, expressed a desire to remain within the orbit of the British Commonwealth, and the legal severance is complete. To find a parallel, we have to go back to the secession of the American Colonies in the 18th Century. I must say that I was rather surprised to find that, when this secession was accomplished, a number of messages of felicitation were sent to the new Irish Republic from different parts

of the Empire, and I was particularly surprised that the King should have been advised to send a message of felicitation in those circumstances. Truly, we live in strange times, and, as the Prime Minister himself has stated, the generosity with which this new Republic is being treated as regards rights of citizenship and so on is almost more than one would have thought possible.
I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) that to call the seceding part of Ireland the Republic of Ireland is a complete misnomer. Northern Ireland is geographically part of Ireland, but it is not a republic. It is part of the United Kingdom. With all the cult of Gaelic and the Gaelic language which we know the Southern Irish have so much at heart, it seems strange indeed that their Government should have abandoned the word Eire, which means Ireland, and reverted to the good old English word Ireland. The reason is not far to seek. It is because the word Eire has come to be associated with the 26 counties of Southern Ireland, and the Southern leaders thought that the name Republic of Ireland will deceive the uninitiated, especially in foreign countries, into thinking that the whole of Ireland is an independent republic. I would much prefer the words Irish Republic, because that does not necessarily connote a republic of the whole of Ireland. In that connection, I was interested to notice the other day that in the official announcement of the meeting of the Foreign Ministers in connection with the formation of the new Council of the Assembly of Europe, the Irish delegation was referred to as representing the Irish Republic and not the Republic of Ireland. I was glad to see that, and I hope that in future official British documents and announcements that kind of precedent will be continued.
Naturally, the greater part of what I am going to say will have relation to Clause 1 (1, b) of this Bill, which I may call the guarantee to Northern Ireland. Before I come to that, however, I should like to say just a word on three subordinate matters. First of all, there is the three months' residence qualification for voting for a Member to be returned to this House. I think it could not have been better explained than it was by the Prime Minister this afternoon, and I have


nothing to add to what the right hon. Gentleman said, except that naturally I am pleased that the Government have adopted it. Then, there is another general point. I have always felt that, now that Southern Ireland has at last definitely become a foreign country and has gone out of the Empire, this would be the time to clear up a lot of anomalies which have existed during the last generation, and one of these is about the Irish Peers. I do not suggest that it should come into this Bill, but what is the position about Irish representative Peers? Is anything going to be done about them?

Mr. Gallacher: Abolish them.

Sir H. O'Neill: What I feel is that, so long as Irish representative Peers, or Irish Peers, exist, the only part of Ireland which now remains within the Commonwealth, namely, Northern Ireland, should have the right to its quota of Irish representative Peers. That is a constitutional anomaly which at the moment is completely in the air, and I should have thought that this was the time to settle it. On another point of that kind, what is going to be the future of that great Order of Knighthood of St. Patrick which, with the Orders of the Garter and the Thistle, has historic associations of the greatest importance? Is the Order of St. Patrick to go on, or is it not? If it is to go on, it seems to me that it should be transferred to the part of Ireland which remains within the United Kingdom, and I should have thought that was a natural thing to have brought about at this time.
Now I come to what must be the main theme of what I propose to say, that is, with regard to the guarantee given to Northern Ireland. That guarantee has naturally been received with satisfaction throughout Ulster. Nevertheless, as the Prime Minister pointed out, it does not really embody anything new; it merely emphasises and confirms the existing situation. The Prime Minister referred to his declaration of last October, but there is also a statutory authority. In Section 3 of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, it was provided that the two Parliaments set up by that Act could by identical Acts of each of them decide on what was called Irish union, upon a united Ireland, but it had to be by Act of Parliament. That is already on the Statute Book, and this Bill is merely carrying out what that Section laid down,

namely, that they could not change the constitutional status of either Northern or Southern Ireland without an Act of their Parliaments.
But, more important even than that statutory authority, in my view, is the general practice which exists, and has always existed, throughout the British Commonwealth. It would be unthinkable in our Commonwealth that when a self-governing Parliament and Constitution had been duly set up by a constitutional statute passed by this House, and when that Parliament had been inaugurated by the Sovereign, and had functioned successfully for 28 years, it could be abolished and its Constitution shattered without the consent of that Parliament. If that sort of thing had been done in the British Commonwealth, that Commonwealth would have been blasted to smithereens at least a century ago.

Mr. Gallacher: It was done in Newfoundland.

Sir H. O'Neill: It has been said that this guarantee to Northern Ireland perpetuates partition. I do not know whether it does or not, but at any rate, in view of the violent reaction. in Southern Ireland, and the spate of propaganda that they have been putting forward, I must ask the indulgence of the House while I remind hon. Members for a few minutes of the history of partition, how it began—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—and on what authority it rests�ž[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I should have thought that at a time when partition is being violently assailed it was not unreasonable to give the House some details of its origin and the authority on which it rests. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]
Partition first received statutory recognition in the Government of Ireland Act. 1920, but the principle of partition had been conceded before the outbreak of the 1914–18 war by the Liberal Government under Mr. Asquith. It was conceded in order to avoid a civil war. Some hon. Members may remember that a conference was held at Buckingham Palace shortly before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 under the chairmanship of the then Speaker of the House of Commons, Mr. Speaker Lowther, who died only a short time ago. That conference was held between representatives of Northern and Southern Ireland in


order to try to agree on what the area of the separate Northern State should be. The Conference, unfortunately, broke down, and when the 1914 war began, the Home Rule Act which had just passed the House of Commons was suspended until the end of that war.
At the conclusion of the war, the place of the Home Rule Act, 1912, was taken by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and in that latter Act partition received for the first time statutory recognition, and the area adopted for Northern Ireland was that of the Six Counties of which it still consists. The reason why those Six Counties were adopted as forming the extent of Northern Ireland was because they formed a homogeneous area just large enough to form a separate unit of Government, but small enough to include as few people as possible who preferred incorporation in Southern Ireland. Admittedly, it included some 30 per cent. in all, but, on the other hand, it excluded substantial numbers of Unionists in adjoining counties who would have preferred to be in Northern Ireland.
A great deal has been said—the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. W. Wells) referred to them—about these counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh. The hon. Member for Walsall said that they had an overwhelming majority of those who desired to go in with Southern Ireland.

Mr. W. Wells: I only said that the southern parts of those counties had an overwhelming majority.

Sir H. O'Neill: I think the hon. Member is quite mistaken. As it happens, the southern part of County Tyrone is the predominantly Unionist part of that county. During the last few days I have examined the figures of the elections in those two counties—not the elections to the local Parliament but the elections to this House where, since the Act of 1920, Tyrone and Fermanagh have been represented as one whole constituency returning two Members. I have taken five contested elections since 1922. I have not included one election which was not fought by the Unionists at all; it was a contest between two different sections of Nationalists. Neither have I included one election where those counties returned Unionist Members to this House: that equally was because of some disagree-

ments between the Nationalists. I have, however, included the five General Elections to this House where a straight fight took place between Unionists and Nationalists. Over those five General Elections the average electorate was 111,000, and the average Nationalist majority was 6,332. Is that an overwhelming majority? I do not think it is realised that in those two counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh there is a massive concentration of Unionist voters and any suggestion of putting them out of Northern Ireland, would be quite unthinkable.
The Act of 1920 was, of course, never accepted by Southern Ireland. After a period of rebellion, insurrection and war, a Treaty was concluded in 1921 between the United Kingdom and the leaders of the rebellion. The Southern Irish leaders considered that 1921 Treaty so solemn and so binding that they registered it with the League of Nations at Geneva. That Treaty of 1921 recognised partition, but with a modification inserted at the request of the Irish negotiators which was much resented in Ulster. That modification was that a boundary commission was to be set up, in the words of the Treaty,
to determine in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic considerations, the boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland.
The Chairman of that commission was to be appointed by the British Government, and there were to be two other members. one representing the new Irish Free State as it then was, and one representing Northern Ireland. The chairman selected by the British Government was Mr. Justice Feetham, a very distinguished South African judge.
That boundary commission was duly appointed. It carried out its duties most thoroughly. It visited the border districts, and it heard evidence from individuals and organisations representing all parties and creeds. In due course it agreed upon a report, but before the report was published a leakage occurred in the Press and its findings were published in the Press. The Southern Irish leaders had, of course, expected that Northern Ireland territory would have been adjudicated to them, but, to their consternation, rage and fury, they found that the boundary commission merely recommended some minor rectifications


of the existing border but also proposed the transfer from the Free State to Northern Ireland of certain Unionist districts just outside the border. Truly they were hoist with their own petard. The fat was properly in the fire. The Free State member of the commission who had agreed to the report was forced to resign.
Hurried consultations took place between the British and Free State Governments, with the result that another Treaty was signed in 1925 which referred to and supplemented the Treaty of 1921. In this supplemental agreement the report of the boundary commission was ignored, and it was agreed that the territory of Northern Ireland should remain inviolate and comprise the original Six Counties. So it has remained up to this day. The Treaty of 1925 was duly ratified by the Parliaments of the United Kingdom, the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. It will be found in our Statute Book under the title of Ireland (Confirmation of Agreement) Act, 1925. As a result of this agreement, Southern Ireland recognised and accepted partition and it recognised the existing boundary, which was solemnly ratified, confirmed and endorsed by the elected representatives of the people of Southern Ireland in their Parliament.
The case for partition, therefore, is unassailable, legally, constitutionally and morally.

Mr. Gallacher: Not legally.

Sir H. O'Neill: Now, when they have gone out of the Empire and repudiated allegiance to the Crown, they are raging and fuming against Britain because of what they call the forcible annexation and occupation of a part of their country. Annexation indeed! British control exists in Northern Ireland with the passionate approval and the overwhelming desire of the immense majority of the population, and we who come from Northern Ireland are glad to know that the geographical position of our Province makes it of especial importance in the strategical defence of these islands.
Certain people in Southern Ireland have recently been threatening force against Ulster. I do not think the responsible leaders have done so, though I see that Mr. de Valera on Friday last said about this Bill:

If they try to put new bars on the door we are going to add few pieces of weight to the battering ram.
Also I have been told, though I have not seen it, that Mr. McBride stated the other day that the conditions created by this Bill were conditions which might be suitable for a revival of the I.R.A. Any kind of open aggression against Ulster would, of course, rally to our aid the Armed Forces of Britain, our Armed Forces, which must, of course, defend any part of the United Kingdom against attack. But I would have no fear of any such attack. What I do fear is a repetition of the tactics that were used against Ulster between 1920 and 1922. Those were the assassination of prominent leaders and of numbers of policemen in the course of their duty, terroristic bomb outrages, the malicious burning of public offices and private houses, and that kind of thing became well known even in this country shortly before this war when bomb outrages took place all over England.

Mr. Skeffington-Lodge: Does the right hon. Member think he is contributing to better relations between the North and South of Ireland by saying this kind of thing in this House?

Sir H. O'Neill: I think the hon. Member will agree with me that this is a time of great anxiety and great seriousness for Ulster. I am calm and quiet and I am not in the least making any inflammatory speeches. I merely stated that threats of force have been made, and I am stating to the House what is the sort of force that, I think, might again be tried, and I think I am perfectly entitled to do that.
If this sort of thing occurs again the necessary counter measures will fall mainly on the Government of Northern Ireland. If they have to take action, I know that it will be firm and relentless and also that there will be no lack of volunteers to re-form the special constabulary which did such splendid work a generation ago. Force of that kind, or of any kind, cannot succeed. It will accomplish nothing except to increase the barriers between North and South. It will mainly react against those who have the unwisdom to start it.
This talk of a united Ireland is to a large extent a chimera of the imagination. Ireland never has been united, except during the 120 years when it was united within the United Kingdom. The whole


history of the country has been a history of wars between Irish tribes and sects, and the only union which has existed in the country was from 1800 to 1920. The only union which can exist again will be, if the time ever comes, when Southern Ireland will decide once again to enter the constitutional structure of these British islands.
Ulster has refused to join up with a country which has hitherto professed at least nominal allegiance to the Crown. Now that that country has repudiated her allegiance and has ceased to be part of His Majesty's Dominions, our determination is strengthened, as my right hon. Friend said it would be and as the Prime Minister indicated it would be, ten thousandfold. British we have always been; British we shall remain. All the efforts of our opponents to sweep us away from our heritage, whether by propaganda or by stealth or by force, will crumble and break as they have crumbled and broken before against the unalterable will and inflexible determination of the vast majority of the people of Northern Ireland.

5.16 p.m.

Mr. Delargy: I am sure the House will not expect me to follow all the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Antrim (Sir H. O'Neill) in the historical essay which he has just read to the House and I hope he will not mind very much if I now return to the Bill. I do, however, deprecate most strongly the fact that he has not followed the very sound advice given to the House by the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) to make restrained speeches. Instead of that he devoted five or ten minutes to telling the House about threats and "specials" and firm and relentless treatment to be meted out by the Northern Ireland Government. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeffington-Lodge) said, that is hardly helpful.
I wish to address the House on Clause 1 (1), paragraph (b). The Prime Minister has said that this is no new declaration. He has said that this merely recognises the status quo, and the right hon. Gentleman the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition agreed with him in that. In fact, we saw today a remarkable degree of agree-

ment between the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington. When the right hon. Gentleman gives us his Unionist and Conservative views I listen to him with attention and, indeed, with respect, because I know he sincerely holds those views, but when my own leader, the Prime Minister, addresses me in the same accents I listen indeed with attention but also with acute alarm.
If this Clause is no new declaration, if it merely recognises the status quo, why was it put in the Bill at all? I maintain that this Clause is entirely unnecessary. If we eliminate the Clause the Bill still stands; it stands logically and all of one piece. The main purpose of the Bill is to regularise the new relations which will exist between the Republic of Ireland and this country and, in the main, it does precisely that. In fact, in that respect, so far as it goes, I am strongly in favour of the Bill. But that part of the Bill which deals with Northern Ireland and which gives the guarantee to Northern Ireland is completely irrelevant. It has nothing whatever to do with the main purpose of the Bill and, therefore, it should not have been included in the Bill.
The inclusion of this irrelevant and, as I believe, gratuitously hostile Clause into a Measure which it was pretended was a gesture of friendship towards the new Republic of Ireland is a piece of sheer political effrontery. Even if I had always supported the Government entirely in their policy towards Ireland, even then I must logically oppose this Clause because today the Government have radically changed their own policy. In the quarrel about Irish unity the present Government have always declared themselves to be neutral. Over and over again they have said how dearly they would like to see the North and South become friendly to each other, and how dearly they would like to see the leaders of the North and South meet together to endeavour amicably to arrive at a solution to their conflicting views. But the Government have remained outside. The Government have, as it were, operated a policy of polite verbal non-intervention. But by this Clause the Government forsake that policy. Now the Government intervene, and they intervene with a vengeance. Now they take sides for the


first time in the quarrel about Irish unity. They take the Tory and the Unionist side, against the democratic Labour and Nationalist side.
This Clause intends to make partition permanent. Let us not deceive ourselves about that. Let us not be carried away by these phrases of how dearly some time in the far distant future we should love to see the two countries come together, because those phrases mean nothing at all, This Clause purports to make partition permanent, and no other meaning can be read into it. By leaving the question of partition entirely in the hands of the Northern Ireland Government, as this Clause does, partition becomes permanent. It becomes permanent because the Northern Ireland Government was particularly created for that special purpose. The boundaries of the Northern Ireland State which is a quite arbitrary and artificial State, were most skilfully drawn with the one purpose in view, that there should aways be in the enclosed area a guaranteed Unionist majority. No one will dispute that. It is to that party and that Parliament we are now leaving the decision; it is to that party with its guaranteed permanent majority, to those men whose main purpose in politics is to maintain that division of their own country.
We are now in this Parliament forsaking a large part of our own responsibility, since we are leaving the decision about Irish unity completely in the hands of men who are, we know, already pledged to maintain the division of their country. Surely, then, my argument is sound and this Clause makes partition a permanency.

Mr. John E. Haire: Does my hon. Friend remember that Section 3 in the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, reads precisely the same as this Clause, and that that Act set up a Council of Ireland to bring about the unity of Ireland? If it was not permanent then, it is not now necessarily permanent.

Mr. Delargy: The relevance of my hon. Friend's interruption quite escapes me. The Council of Ireland to which he refers no longer exists. We are now dealing with a fact proposed in this Bill. We have already had learned disquisitions into history, and for heaven's sake do not let us have any more.

Mr. Haire: Does my hon. Friend deny that this Clause was contained in the 1920 Act?

Mr. Delargy: Furthermore, there is another quite startling change in Government policy. In a recent Debate the Prime Minister declared that there would be no change in the constitutional position of Northern Ireland without the consent of the people of Northern Ireland. Let Members mark well "without the consent of people in Northern Ireland." Had those words been included in the Clause I might have been in a position to accept it but I cannot possibly accept it if the words "without the consent of the Parliament of Northern Ireland" remain.
There are three questions I should like to ask, to which I hope full answers will be given. The first is this. What guarantees do we propose to give to the minority in the Six Counties? I can assure the House that this question is not an academic one. The minority in the Six Counties is most fearful, and in the light of past history they have some reason to be fearful, fearful of victimisation and fearful of physical violence. I hope that the Minister will not be cynical enough to say that this is not our responsibility, because this Clause saddles us with that responsibility. This Clause give a free hand to the Northern Ireland Parliament. I have no wish to be provocative, and Heaven forbid that any words of mine should render worse an already dangerous situation, but with the Northern Ireland Government having an entirely free hand, I am bound to view with alarm the consequences to the minority and ask the Government whether they are prepared for these consequences—consequences which once again are the almost certain outcome of their own policy outlined in this Bill.
My second question is: Who insisted on the inclusion of this unnecessary, irrelevant and quite mischievous Clause? I refuse to believe that any group of Labour Ministers spontaneously and on their own initiative included the Clause in the Bill. Who did it therefore, and from where did the pressure come? The House has a right to know what forces there are which are stronger than the Government, stronger than the majority sentiment in this party, which is the majority party in the House. I hope


we shall be given a firm answer to that question.
My last question is this. Were the Dominions consulted in this matter? I know that in his opening speech the Prime Minister said that the Dominion premiers were consulted about other Clauses in the Bill, but I should like to know whether they were consulted about this Clause. I should like to know what New Zealand and Australia said, and what the other Dominions have said about this Clause which makes partition permanent in Ireland. There must be thousands of people in Australia, New Zealand and many other parts of the Commonwealth who will be interested to know the answer.
But when all the questions have been answered, when all has been said and all the arguments have been put, there still remains this one fundamental question, the only question which really matters. Is this Clause right, or is it wrong? That is the only question which really matters. The question must be thoroughly understood. I do not ask whether it be legally correct, politically expedient, or tactically sound. I ask whether it is morally right or morally wrong. That is the fundamental moral issue we have to face this afternoon. If it be, as I maintain it is, morally wrong to mutilate a nation, to deny to a nation the right to its own integrity, then all the other arguments are irrelevant.
All the glib talk about British security, all references to the Commonwealth and all arguments about loyalty, the very questionable loyalty, of a minority of Irishmen in the North-East corner, are irrelevant. They all collapse before the fundamental moral issue. The Irish people have the moral right to decide for themselves their own destiny. The territorial integrity of Ireland is a matter to be determined democratically by the free votes of the Irish people and by no one else. This Clause denies them that right. This Clause, therefore, is immoral, and not all the speeches in the world can hide its immorality.
I appeal to the Government to withdraw this Clause. I appeal to the Government as one of their most consistent and loyal supporters to withdraw it because it is not only bad in itself: it goes

against every decent principle for which the Labour Party ever stood. I would remind my own leaders on the Front Bench that when the 1920 Act was passed in this House, which first divided Ireland in two, the Parliamentary Labour Party of those days unanimously, officially and enthusiastically voted against it. I am very glad to see in his place today my hon. Friend the Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean), one of the survivors of those days, who was one of the Labour Party's tellers against the Bill.
The leaders of my party cannot be happy about this Clause. There is no Labour Member here who can be proud of this wretched piece of political chicanery. I ask the Government to withdraw it. It would not be a sign of weakness to withdraw it. It is never a sign of weakness to confess honestly to having made a mistake and to endeavour to rectify it. Therefore, not only in support of the clear, democratic rights of the Irish people, but also for the good name of this country and for the good name of the party to which I belong, I would urge the Government to reconsider the whole matter, to seek a fresh basis from which this very difficult problem could be approached. If the Government were to do that they would have with them not merely the friendly co-operation of the Irish people in Ireland and in many countries of the world, but they would also have the heartiest goodwill of democrats everywhere.

5.32 p.m.

Professor Groffydd: When I first read this Bill I felt inclined to echo the words of Robert Louis Stevenson's Commercial Traveller, "Golly! What a paper!" I intend in the few minutes I have at my disposal to be very critical of this Bill, and almost certainly I shall offend both sides, which will show, I think, that I am impartial. I noticed that the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) skimmed very lightly indeed over its difficulties. I cannot see what any Member of that party to which he belongs could do but skim with great skill over any Bill that has to do with Ireland in view of their past. history. I belong to the Liberal Party, and I have the right therefore, to be critical—

Earl Winterton: That party only is right.

Professor Gruffydd: —because the Liberal Party in all its history has shown sympathy and understanding with the immemorial grievances of Ireland; and if the Liberal Party's policy for the last half century had been followed, or even if it had not been impeded, we should not today be faced with the necessity for this Bill, nor be presented with the almost insoluble problem which, I believe, it involves.
But while I deal with the very unusual character of this Bill and its proposals I should like to ask the Government—or, rather, repeat a request that has already been made to the Government by the hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Delargy)—whether, when the Commonwealth Ministers were consulted about this matter, they consented to the two policies that are in this Bill—namely, first, the policy of treating Ireland, now a foreign country, as though it were not a foreign country, and, secondly, the inclusion of Clause 1 (1, b). It would help me to take a kinder view of the Bill if I had satisfactory answers to those two questions.
Most arguments so far, in Ireland itself as well as in the papers of this country, have been legalistic. I am not competent to deal with arguments of that kind. However, there is one point in what the Prime Minister said today to which I must take exception. He said that everyone had the right to choose his own name and that we could not question the name which the Republic of Ireland gives itself. Of course we cannot question it; but the argument about the personal name which we use, seems to me entirely illusory, because the name of the Republic of Ireland is not only a name; it is a declaration and challenge; and because it is a declaration and a challenge I think it is perfectly right for hon. Members on this side of the House to object to it.
Eventually, I believe, it is the jurist who will have to settle this, one of the most puzzling problems in the whole history of our external relations. So far, no mention has been made, except in the Prime Minister's speech, of the extraordinary proposal to allow a person to be at once a foreigner and not a foreigner. Mr. Costello in the Dail said that he would not deal with the situation by legal casuistry. I am not surprised, because the most agile Irish intellect which can

split hairs to a miscroscopic fineness can make nothing of the tangled web which this Bill contains. It is trying to settle a question which is ultimately, I suggest, not a matter for Britain at all, and not a matter for Eire, but a matter for the courts. namely, the matter of citizenship; and one of the questions involved will be a question for an international court.
There is no doubt that Eire intends, after she becomes a member of U.N.O., to apply to U.N.O. to consider the question of partition. We can be certain of that. If she does that and asks U.N.O. to consider that question, there are two things that may happen. We may consent to the discussion of the question. If we do, and if the decision goes against us, what is the value of Clause 1 (1, b)? None whatsoever. If, on the other hand, we do not consent to the discussion of the question by U.N.O., then we shall be stultifying everything we have said in the discussions of the last two years.

Earl Winterton: Nonsense. The hon. Gentleman could as well say that of Wales or Sussex.

Professor Gruffydd: Wales, as it happens, is not independent; nor is Sussex. Apparently by this Bill, Ireland is.

Earl Winterton: A fantastic idea, typical of the Liberal Party.

Professor Gruffydd: There are many questions of great difficulty concerning the national status of Irish subjects resident in Britain. I shall give only two examples out of a host. I should like a little light on these matters. What happens to an Irish subject, who, as has already been mentioned, may stand for this Parliament and who is elected? It is clear that he can be elected. Will he then be allowed to take the Oath of Allegiance at this Table, and, if he is allowed to take the Oath of Allegiance, how, in the name of common sense, can a man have allegiance to the Republic of Ireland and also have allegiance to the King of Britain? I should like to get an answer to that question.
The second matter arises on the reply given to the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers) by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury on 2nd May, which is as follows:
The undertaking given by the Prime Minister in this House on the 25th November. 1948, that citizens of Eire shall not be treated


as foreigners will be followed so far as concerns their employment by the Crown or in Government Departments."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd May. 1949, Vol. 464, c. 41.]
If I understand the words of that statement it means, for instance, that the Irish member of the Bar may take silk, and may then be asked to take the Oath of Allegiance. It would also mean that it is possible for an Irish subject to become the permanent Secretary of the Foreign Office or the permanent Secretary of the War Office. It would be possible—I do not mean for a moment that there is probability—for the country to which he owes allegiance and of which he is a subject to be allied to another country with which we are at war at that time. That is not impossible. It is by no means impossible—and anyone who lived in Ireland during the Spanish troubles will agree with me.
The sympathy of Ireland then was with Spain. In the very improbable event of our being at war with Spain, what would happen then, with the Civil Service and the Services generally bristling with Irish subjects who owe no allegiance whatsoever to the King of Britain? I said that I would offend both sides, and now I must say that the fact is that the English mind persists in treating Ireland as belonging to the British family, hoping, of course, by a show of tolerance and a show of kindness, that this fractious child will behave itself.
I do not wish to be misunderstood. I appreciate and commend the magnanimity and beneficence which is shown in the intention in this Bill. I think that I can congratulate the Prime Minister in particular for his part in it; and for having carried out or tried to carry out in it the political method which was first adopted by the Liberals under Campbell-Bannerman after the disastrous lowering of standards by the South African war.
I do not know how much South Africa gained by the concessions which we made then to them, but I am certain that we British in this country, having made them, had an incalculable gain, not only in external prestige but in our own conscience and in our own well-being as a nation. This offer to Ireland also will be invaluable to heal the breach with Ireland—but for Britain and not for Ireland, because I doubt very much that the offer will do anything whatsoever to cause

Ireland to feel more kindly towards us. I believe that when a lady rejects a suitor she has been known to say "I cannot be your wife but I will be your sister." I believe that is a common occurrence. In all the curious proposals and rejections of history, I have never heard of the rejected suitor saying to the lady "Now that you have rejected me I will be your brother and not only will I be your brother but you will have all the privileges of a wife, with the proviso, of course, which is contained in subsection (1, b), that I shall never divorce my wife without her consent." I can imagine very well what the reactions of such a lady would be if a suitor said that to her. Would she be grateful? I do not think so. She would not only not feel grateful but she would feel immensely insulted and that, as I read the facts, is what is happening now in Ireland.
Let me read two comments from the Irish papers. The "Irish Press"—Mr. de Valera's paper—states:
The very title of the Bill is an affront to the Irish nation. The Irish people deny most vehemently that any foreign country has the right to interfere in Irish affairs.
The "Irish Independent"—Mr. Costello's paper—states:
The Socialists are doing a bad day's work for the relationship between the Irish people and the British people.
Having said that, I should like to call attention to one side of the matter which has not been mentioned here. It is a matter about which I know something professionally.
Ireland is an ancient and very distinguished nation. By a nation I mean a community with a definitely historical, social and cultural identity and continuity which has contributed vastly to religion, scholarship, literature and art in Europe. That contribution was made by Irishmen because they belonged to a separate nation, although politically they were not then separate. Even when that contribution was made in the English language it was and it is Irish and not English. It has a distinctive Irish character of its own which no Scottish or Welsh literature in the English language possesses. Need I do more than mention, for instance. Goldsmith, Sheridan, W. B. Yeats, George Moore and, above all, the most Irish of all Irishmen, Bernard Shaw.
Ireland knows that it is a nation and consequently demands to be treated as a


nation. When I say "treated as a nation," I say that she demands to be treated by Britain exactly with the respect and the reserve with which, for instance, France or Sweden or Poland is being treated. Ireland wants to be a foreign country to England. There is no doubt about that. When we go to Ireland we realise it. She does not want any of the advantages of not being a foreigner; she definitely wants the dis-advantages of being a foreigner. She wants more than anything else—and this is where I am going to offend my Irish friends, I am sure—to retain what in the strategy of nationhood is invaluable to it, namely, its age-long grievance against Britain. Although Ireland' is culturally a completely united nation it is not a completely united nation politically. I am not now speaking about partition, but about Eire. Have hon. Members noticed that in Ireland there are no political parties in the sense that there are political parties in this country?

Earl Winterton: Could the hon. Member explain what he means when he says that culturally Ireland is a united nation, when as a matter of fact some of the most violent polemics in Irish literature are between Catholics and non-Catholics?

Professor Gruffydd: The noble Lord surely does not think that when one Irishman abuses another—

Earl Winterton: On cultural grounds.

Professor Gruffydd: —that means there is any break between them? When I was interrupted I was saying that in Ireland there are no political parties in the same sense as there are in other countries. There are no Liberals or Conservatives in the sense that we have them in this country; there is only a very small Labour Party; and there are very few Communists. Although Ireland is in some respects disunited, it is absolutely united in its politics. As far as I can see, there is no difference between Mr. Costello and Mr. de Valera; the mainspring of thought and action in both is a grievance against Britain. Ireland is, unfortunately, like Lot's wife—always looking back to the dreary Sodom of its past. Ireland can cohere as a nation only by being turned into a pillar of bitter salt. In other words, the mortar which keeps the Irish nation together is the grievance against Britain.
The reception of this Bill in Ireland has been extremely unfortunate. It has inflamed ancient hostilities, and any' assuagement that might come from one part of the Bill has been entirely destroyed by the inclusion of Clause 1 (1, b). The case against Northern Ireland has not been put very effectually, because it is quite obvious that the hon. Member for the Platting Division of Manchester (Mr. Delargy) was speaking from a very sincere but hot feeling. I think it could be coolly said that the one objection Southern Ireland has to this Bill is to the words "Parliament of Northern Ireland." The Prime Minister was not quite as disingenuous as he generally is—[Laughter.] I meant of course that he was not as sincere as he generally is when he said that this Bill is only repeating a pledge that was given before. If, as the hon. Member for Platting said, the pledge were given that Northern Ireland would never cease to be part of the United Kingdom except with the consent of its inhabitants, then I think this Bill would come nearer to acceptance in Southern Ireland.
I gave a warning at the beginning at my speech that I would offend both sides. The general effect of the unwelcome insistence upon friendship with this country has been disastrous, and I say that with very great regret. The Government, having perpetrated what is in my opinion one of the clumsiest gaffes in their career, should now think again and withdraw this Bill. I do not know—I do not think anyone here knows—the solution to the difficulty; but that solution is certainly not contained in this Bill, which has the distinction of being an offence to the Irish and a folly to the English.

Mr. Rogers: Would the hon. Gentleman mind giving us a clearer indication than he has done so far of the way the Liberal Party intend to vote?

Professor Gruffydd: I thought I made it perfectly clear when I asked the Government to withdraw the Bill. Surely that is as clear as anything could be.

5.56 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore: We have now had the Ulster case put, I think in all its purity, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Antrim (Sir H. O'Neill); we have had the Eire


case put with great feeling, but I think complete sterility, by the hon. Member for the Platting Division of Manchester (Mr. Delargy). I should now like to enter the Debate in the guise of an honest broker. Born as I was in Ulster and educated in Southern Ireland, with my interests in Scotland and my work here, I feel that possibly I may allow a fair sense of judgment to colour whatever suggestions or remarks I might make.
It is exceedingly difficult to obey the advice of the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) to be non-provocative after the speeches made in the Dail yesterday. It is exceedingly difficult not to retort in like words to Mr. Costello's very provocative speech, which was unworthy of a national Parliament. However, I will do my best. The hon. Member for the University of Wales (Professor Gruffydd) complained that this was an odd Bill. I do not see why he should be surprised at that. The Government have brought in many odd Bills in the last four years; it is simply a matter of degree. I should therefore like to compliment the Parliamentary draftsmen on having brought to bear all their erudite efforts to make comparative sense out of the somewhat confused ideas which have obviously animated the Government on this involved question. Indeed, the only unambiguous note which has been struck in the whole of the Bill is Clause 1 (1, b), which defines the position of Ulster. In that we discover something of the rugged sense and the unshakeable patriotism of the North manifesting itself. We must congratulate the Government on having achieved at any rate one understandable and unequivocal paragraph in this otherwise somewhat confused Measure.
I now wish to examine the Bill in more detail to find where it will lead us. Clause 1 (1, a) is straightforward enough; it states clearly that Eire ceases to be part of His Majesty's dominions. Well, no doubt it had to, since Eire itself came to that conclusion some six weeks ago. But as I see it, that statement ceases to have any effect when we pass to Clause 2, which says that despite Eire being now outside the British Empire or Commonwealth—the Prime Minister allows us to have it either way now—she is not a foreign country. I took that up with the Secretary of State for Commonwealth

Relations some time ago, and got very little in response, except courtesy. It seems to me that the Government are living in a world of fantasy—and a world of fantasy which they have created for themselves, because apparently words no longer have their meaning. I hesitate to think of the kind of conundrum which will face His Majesty's judges when they have to implement some of the provisions of the Bill.
The position, as I see it, is this: the Irish are English when they want to live in, work for and fight for England; the English are Irish when they do not want to live in, work for, or pay taxes to, England. That is one oddity. There is another important oddity. The Bill discusses at length, and quite naturally, the nationality of aircraft and ships, but so far as I can see it does nothing to explain the position of Members of this House, His Majesty's judges and soldiers and civil servants who are of Southern Irish birth. It may be that an explanation of this point is hidden somewhere in the involved Clauses of the Bill, and the Prime Minister did attempt to clarify the position. But what he said is not in the Bill itself and it would be far better, and in the interests of our courts of law, if something definite were put into the Bill to show where, for instance, people like my hon. Friend the Member for Moseley (Sir P. Hannon) and others stand.
Now I would like to be quite blunt. I think the Bill is a work of fiction, for whatever legal formulæ may be passed in Ireland or in England they cannot alter the facts, which are that the North and South of Ireland are bound together by the unbreakable laws of inter-marriage, material dependence, commerce and tradition. Nothing can break those bonds. Severance of Ireland from England, and Ulster from Eire, is purely political. It is not sentimental, because inter-marriage is going on every day between the North and South; it is not material because inter-trade is going on every day; and it is not spiritual, because both worship God each in their own way.
I would like to give one or two reasons why this tragi-comedy which I am hopeful will one day be ended need never have existed. As has already been said, it is born of cruelty and stupidity in the past on the part of England and long and


vindictive memories on the part of Ireland. It exists today, I believe, largely as the result of premature and foolish action on the part of Mr. Costello. Had he waited only a short time, until the Imperial Conference, he would have found how easy was entry into the portals of the greatest unions of freedom which the world has ever known. India would have shown him the way, and he might have found himself in the comity of nations.

Mr. Crossman: Surely Mr. Costello was looking for an exit, not an entry.

Sir T. Moore: No, I think he was looking, and is still looking, for the betterment of Ireland, though I think he conceives that betterment from the wrong angle. I am satisfied that he speaks for very few people in Ireland; I know Ireland fairly well and I think I know it better than Mr. Costello, who has not interpreted the natural decency and kindliness which exists in the Irish people. If he had done so, he would not have made the speech which he made last night.

Mr. John Lewis: One of the difficulties in this matter, which was made clear by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) is that on this specific issue all Irish parties are united. They represent in fact, what are the aspirations of the majority of the Irish people.

Sir T. Moore: That is a dogmatic statement which is open to every sort of argument. It suits their purpose for the time being. Now they find that they cannot out-bid each other any further they have to agree.
I was saying, when I was interrupted—for no essential purpose, so far as I can see—that had Mr. Costello been wiser, and shown the statesmanship which a man in his position should have shown, the North, ever eager to consolidate and strengthen their union with Britain, would have stretched out a friendly hand to the South. We might have seen the result even in our time—the end of partition which we all so much deplore. We must face the facts. Ireland is too small for partition, and is too important to Britain for severance to be permanent.

Sir Patrick Hannon: My hon. and gallant Friend's

calculation as to expectation of life during which a settlement might be come to, indicates that that expectation would be rather prolonged.

Sir T. Moore: I am an optimist, and I hope that even my optimism might prove to be justified before both my hon. Friend and myself leave this unhappy world.
Ireland is too small to be divided into fractions and factions. It is too important to Britain for a severance to be permanent. Ireland, North and South, is too dependent on Britain to permit partition to be a national policy for all time. Partion must ultimately go but—and here is the crucial question—on what terms? But for the stupid and, as I believe, blackmailing speech made yesterday by Mr. Costello in the Dail, as reported in the newspapers this morning, I could have suggested terms which might have led ultimately to what we all hope for; that speech, however, has deferred fruitful and sucessful action for many years. Those who remember the 1921 Act know that it was proposed and accepted that a common council should be set up, to go into the difficulties between Northern and Southern Ireland and make arrangements for an ultimate end of partition. Ulster volunteered members of that council, but Southern Ireland refused. There, indeed, was an opportunity that might by now have resulted in an ending of this unhappy state of affairs. Is it too late to have such a council, on which both sides can approach their common problems and find a method of overcoming their antagonisms?
There is another method which might be followed by Mr. Costello and his friends—whether it is too early or too late for general acceptance I do not know—and that is the method which was adopted by Pandit Nehru. Today the United Kingdom is in effect a Dominion, the chief amongst the equals in the wider sphere. I hope someone will consider pursuing the idea as to why Southern Ireland should not follow the method of Mr. Nehru and become a Dominion. That might very well ease the situation all round. Ulster could also become a Dominion, which would not alter the loyalty and devotion of her people to Britain or the natural friendship of England for Ulster. It would not alter the ties that bind us together, but it might


well lead to one glorious result, that ultimately instead of two Dominions—because when both are in the same family certain problems become very much easier—we might see one trusted, loyal, gay and gallant Dominion of United Ireland.

6.10 p.m.

Mr. McGhee: I recognise that the Prime Minister stated his facts correctly when he said that the necessity for this Bill was because of the action of the Eire Government in declaring that country a Republic. That action certainly has not affected the welfare of the Irish people in any social degree, but was taken, I believe, for the main purpose of out-manoeuvring Mr. de Valera in the eyes of the Irish people. That ought to be stated here. At the same time, the declaration of a Republic resulted in making a large population of Irish men and women aliens in this country, and I welcome the part of the Bill which gets us over that difficulty. What I am asking for is the best of both worlds, in that I want to see that in the Bill, but I want the declaration about partition being left in the hands of the Northern Ireland Tory Government omitted from the Bill.
I have had some experience of the Government of Northern Ireland, and it is touching to realise that this is the first time in the political history of this country that we see gratitude being offered to the friends of the Labour Government. I know many Ulster Irishmen have boasted to me how they fought and worked to keep the Labour Government out of power in this country, and some of them voted even half a dozen times to do so. It is true to say that the Ulster M.P.s who happened to be here voted against various nationalisation Bills presented to this House. I am not sure whether they did that because they were opposed to public ownership or opposed to the word "national" in "nationalisation." The reward for continuous opposition by the Tory Members from Northern Ireland in this House is that the working-class people of Northern Ireland are handed over to the worst Government that this Empire has ever known.
Their policy is almost diametrically opposed to everything the Labour Government stands for. They are anxious to continue the policy of full unemployment in Northern Ireland. They made full use of their powers to see that they always had a margin of unemployed workers so that the wages in Northern Ireland could be kept at their present very low level. I am aware that even in Northern Ireland the Government have distributed their favours on economic questions pretty liberally. When we were over in Northern Ireland for the County Down by-election, which we lost, though the Labour candidates from this country received more votes than the hon. and gallant Member for Down (Lieutenant Mullan), we were told a story in Gilford about a strike of some Orange workers for higher wages. The Northern Ireland Government scoured the border towns for Catholic policemen to come down to Gilford, and they had instructions not to be too light on the Orangemen in that district. The Labour Party and the Nationalists of Northern Ireland heaved a sigh of relief when the Labour Government were returned to power in this country in 1945, because they knew then that they were safe from the possibility of a pogrom in Northern Ireland.
The gratitude of the Government to the Ulster Members of this House for having supported the Labour Party policy so strenuously during the whole of this Parliament is slightly reversed. I must remind the leaders of the Labour Party today that the real founders of this Labour movement here were the old Irish Party, which sat in this House. It is true that the Labour movement is based upon the great trade union movement outside, but the trade union movement in this country would never have had a political voice to build up the political movement had it not been for the action of the Irish Party in securing that right for them; through Amendments to the great Trade Union Act, which the present Foreign Secretary wanted to be carried, and which were put down on the Order Paper by Members of the Irish Party despite the opposition of the intellectual leaders of the Labour movement of that day. That contrasts very badly with the treatment now meted out to the Ulster people.
I do not see that the Irish Republic will mean a halfpenny more in wages or in better social conditions for the workers of Southern Ireland. They are the only people for whom I want to speak. The trappings and trimmings of a republic will not butter anybody's bread. Though I do not want to speak in terms of narrow nationalism in this Debate, I plead with the Government not to set the seal of approval of this party, of this Government and of this Parliament upon that part of the Measure which permanently divides the Irish people.

Dr. Morgan: It is a renegade attitude.

Mr. McGhee: It has been said that the Northern Ireland Government propose to deal with the hotheads who resort to the use of arms and rioting on this occasion. Those young men may feel very bitter about this matter, but I plead with them not to give the Ulster Government the opportunity of crushing them I plead with them to go on seeking, with patience and forbearance, a means of coming to some arrangement with their fellow-workers in the Labour movement in Northern Ireland.
I want to say to the people of Ireland generally: "Forget the old feuds and the old causes of disunity, trouble and misery that have afflicted the Irish people." I plead with the Government to perform one more act of statesmanship, to take one more chance before the Bill goes through, to try to bring the Irish people together. We were willing to do this in India and in Egypt. We sent a Cabinet mission to try to bring some form of decent Government to those people, where the disagreement was greater than it is in Ireland. I plead with the Government to drop this paragraph and to make some effort to mediate between these people. If they would do that, those of us here who feel embittered at this part of the Clause would be very happy to give the Government our support in every possible way in that new effort. I plead with the Government to make some effort to bring these people together, not the old parties, or the old capitalist parties, but the working people of Ireland, in a new, great, Labour movement for the benefit of all Ireland.

6.22 p.m.

Mr. Hollis: A large number of hon. Members wish to address the

House and so I will make my remarks very brief and I will not attempt to cover the whole ground by any means. I will try to make two points.
I am one of those, perhaps slightly different from many of my hon. Friends around me, who have been throughout their lives Home Rulers for Ireland, and I still ant so. Nevertheless, if we are to take our stand upon a right of self-determination, I have never been unable to see any argument which justifies Dublin in breaking free from Westminster which does not equally justify Belfast in breaking free from Dublin. I listened very carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Delargy), whose sincerity I deeply respect. His argument seemed to me, although doubtless not to him, to be simply the old Unionist argument dressed up again. We can make the geographical unit what we like. We can say that as there is a majority in favour of it in Ireland, therefore Ireland must be a Republic. But the old Unionist with equal logic used to say that the British Isles were the unit, and therefore would not agree to Home Rule at all. It seems to me to be an unanswerable argument.

Mr. Leslie Hale: The hon. Member has put forward what he thinks to be an unanswerable argument. Let me try to put to him what I conceive to be an answer. If he argues that because Dublin can break away from Westminster then Belfast can break away from Dublin why cannot Fermanagh and Tyrone break away from Belfast if they want to? May I ask whether the paragraph in the Clause does not enunciate precisely the opposite principle?

Mr. Hollis: The argument of the hon. Member is put forward with his usual cogency, but it does not provide an answer to my argument. I will, if you like, deal with that point, which was not the one with which I am now dealing. I agree, since the hon. Member raises the matter, that there is nothing sacrosanct about the present frontier between Northern and Southern Ireland. If in quite a different atmosphere the Eire Government were to approach the problem and making some suggestions, on the lines of Mr. Justice Feetham's award for a detailed rectification of the frontier, which there


was good reason to believe would be a final solution to the problem, I should very strongly support it. But the situation is not that at all, but is entirely different. It is quite a different situation when the confessed intention is to turn Fermanagh and Tyrone into a Sudeten Deutschland. The hon. Member raised a point which was very relevant but one with which I did not intend to deal. I was intending to face the practical question, which is that whether we have subsection (1, b) in the Bill or whether we do not have it, whether there is a Socialist or a Conservative Government in this country, it is entirely unthinkable, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) said, that any British Government in this country should force Northern Ireland out of the Commonwealth against its will. It is fantastic to make that suggestion.
It would seem then that the reasonable thing for Southern Ireland Catholics to do is to accept the situation as it is and the distribution of population as it is, whether they like it or not, and then to ask what policy would allow them to give the maximum amount of help to the Northern Irish Catholics. When I begin to think on these lines, as I frequently do, I cannot forget what was said to me by a distinguished Irish statesman who cannot be accused of being too favourable to the British connection because he fought against us in the 1916 rising. He was subsequently Secretary for External Affairs under Mr. Cosgrave—Mr. Desmond Fitzgerald. He said something, I remember, shortly before his death: "We in the South make a very great mistake when we object to partition. Everybody knows"—and I think this is true—"that up in the North the Catholics frequently suffer hardship and injustice. If we said to the people in the North that we quite admitted their right to exist under the form of Government that they chose for themselves, we could go to that Government and ask them to behave a little bit better in this or that particular. But if we start off by saying to them 'We do not admit your right to exist, whether you behave ill or well,' we can hardly expect them to treat any of our particular representations with respect."

The Prime Minister, Mr. Costello, could not have played his cards in a way to make him more impotent to help the Northern Catholics than the way in which he has in fact played them. When I think of the border between North and South, the first thing that always comes into my mind is an estimable gentleman who used to make, and for all I know still does make, a living there by smuggling pigs to and fro across the border. When on one occasion he was arrested and brought to trial, he was asked whether he pleaded "Guilty" or "Not guilty." He replied: "How can I tell until I have heard the evidence?" That seems to me to be in itself a sensible observation, but—

ROYAL ASSENT

6.30 p.m.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners.

The House went; and, having returned—

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Water (Scotland) Act, 1949.

2. Special Roads Act, 1949.

IRELAND BILL

Question again proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

6.39 p.m.

Mr. Hollis: I would merely make one second point, turning from Clause 1 (1, b) to the other provision in the Bill by which the citizens of Eire are not to be considered as foreigners. I simply want to emphasise one point which has not bulked very large in the Debate so far. During the 19th century the population of this island multiplied by about four. On the other hand, the population of Ireland during the same period declined somewhat and yet there was not much to choose between the birth rates of the two islands. The answer was of course that there was a vastly higher proportional emigration from Ireland. The fact is sometimes overlooked that in the new countries of the world there, is a vastly different proportion between the people of English origin and Irish origin from that which exists in these islands. The Irish are a very much more important factor in the populations of the


new Dominions, particularly in Australia, than in this part of the world. One of the great problems of those countries is to keep the irrelevant Irish issue out of their domestic politics. There is a big improvement in Dominion opinions on this problem since British politics ceased to be dominated by Irish issues. I was in New South Wales 25 years ago at the time of a General Election and the General Election turned almost entirely upon arguments about the rights and wrongs of the Black and Tans and Irish politics, which was both an unnatural and, I think, an evil state of affairs.
One of the great good consequences of the Irish question no longer being the predominant question of British politics has been a very great decline of an unpleasant sectarianism in the politics of the Dominions. It is of vital importance that a policy should be pursued, if it can be pursued, by which there will be no temptation to reintroduce sectarianism into the politics of such countries as Australia. It is of great importance that we should go hand in hand with the great Dominions in this matter. It was my understanding, and I hope I shall prove right, that we are pursuing parallel policies with the Dominions. When first the question of citizenship was raised, it was announced that these rights of citizenship would be granted in this country and in the Dominions. I hope that is the understanding, but I also hope the Lord President of the Council will give categorical answers tonight to the questions about the attitude of the Dominions which were addressed to him by my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) and the hon. Member for Platting. I think it of supreme importance that everyone should be absolutely clear where we stand and that our policy is going hand in hand with the policy of the Dominions.
In general, as one who has spent many of the happiest times of my life in Southern Ireland, it is a very great grief to me that this question should come up at all in this form. There seems a lack of proportion about it which in many ways is extraordinarily unbalanced. One of the greatest challenges to the whole fabric of the European civilisation that history has known has come up in these days and in every other country of the world that challenge has come to a nation

that has to some extent itself been infected by the philosophy of the challenge. The Irish are the only people who have not been infected and that is true of the Irish of the North, as well as the Irish of the South. If ever there could be a challenge in which one would hope Ireland would have found her true unity and her finest hour, it would be in resistance to that challenge. It seems a supreme tragedy that on the very battlefield of Armageddon, people should find something no more important to talk about than the county council elections in Tyrone or the alleged misdemeanours of Cromwell 300 years ago. The problem seems sadly out of proportion to me and seems out of proportion to the great majority of the Irish race who live outside the island of Ireland.
We must never forget that the Irish are a great imperial race spread over the world and that only a small minority of them live in Ireland. My great fear is that if these matters are not wisely handled, there will be a growing divorce between the Irish of Ireland and of the rest of the world. It would be a great tragedy if that happened. In this very difficult situation, and reserving the right with my hon. Friends to examine details of the Bill, I consider that the Government have pursued the wisest course in bringing in the Bill, and I give it my support.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. John E. Haire: My sole excuse for intervening in this Debate is that I have lived for upwards of 30 years in Ireland. I claim to speak with some intimate knowledge of what has happened in that time. I have known many tempers lost, many border battles fought, a great deal of intemperate language used, but I hope that it is not part of my purpose tonight to add it. I agree with the hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) that a great deal is said about the Irish problem and many stories told which are as old as:
The harp that once through Tara's halls.
I should like to think that many hon. Members on all sides of the House would try to get the present objective facts as far as they can be obtained. I hope my contribution to the Debate will be in that factual way.
I have equally many friends south of the border, politically and otherwise,


whom I much admire, and therefore I am very surprised to find that the coercive, almost rebellious, language used yesterday in the Dail should be spoken as representing the mood of the Southern Irish people. That is not the mood of the ordinary man in the Irish street, as I happen to know him. I feel we must ask the Southern Irish to deal with this matter in a much more temperate way.
The contentious Clause of this Bill which worries many of my hon. Friends is Clause 1, particularly subsection (1, b). I believe from my knowledge of Northern Ireland, where I was only last week, that that Clause represents the mood of the vast majority of the people of Northern Ireland. It is not my evidence which may be taken but the evidence of the last election. That election, as hon. Members will know, was fought on one issue and one issue only—

Dr. Morgan: Gerrymandering.

Mr. Haire: It was fought on the question of partition. The Northern Ireland Parliament is not of the political colour of which I approve, but I accept it as representing the will of the people. The election resulted in the return of a Unionist Government with a vaster majority than ever before, and remember, the election was fought on the one issue of partition. I believe that election represents the mood of the people of Northern Ireland at the present time. To hear some of my hon. Friends speaking this afternoon one would assume that even now in Northern Ireland every Protestant votes Unionist and every Catholic Nationalist. That may be so in some country areas in Northern Ireland, but if one analyses the figures of elections in the Belfast constituencies it will be found quite impossible for the Protestants only who voted Unionist to have registered the number of votes by which their candidates were returned. It is quite clear that many Catholics in the Belfast constituencies this time voted for partition.
I think the reason is very clear. Many people of both religions in Northern Ireland recognise that to go in with Southern Ireland would mean the loss of many of the social services they now enjoy and in some industries of the good wages they earn in Northern Ireland. Hon. Members may not be aware of the great disparity which exists between the social services

in Northern Ireland and those in Southern Ireland. I will give but one example. There are contributory old age pensions in Northern Ireland of 26s. and 36s. a week; there are none at all in Southern Ireland. Indeed, our health services, for which we fought so much in this House, and which apply to Northern Ireland, do not apply in the same degree in Southern Ireland. I regret the dilemma in which the Tory Members from Northern Ireland have been placed. They come to this House and, following the lead of the Opposition Front Bench, they vote against these services; but the Northern Ireland Government knows on which side its bread is buttered and it applies them. Indeed, the workers of Northern Ireland know that, and they vote for the Unionist Party there.

Dr. Morgan: True to their principles.

Mr. Haire: The Northern Ireland elections were the easiest elections for a party in power ever to win. They were won, in my opinion, by the action of the Southern Irish, who did but one thing: they collected subscriptions at the chapel doors in every town in Southern Ireland for the purpose of supporting Nationalist candidates in Northern Ireland. The reaction of the Northern Ireland people was that this was an unwarranted intrusion into their affairs. Those electors who might have abstained, certainly did not do so after that.

Mr. Mulvey: No one was defeated except Labour.

Mr. Haire: I am going to talk about the Labour Party in a moment.
The second thing that helped the Northern Ireland Government was the intrusion of the Eire Labour Party, which refused to support their comrades in the North of Ireland who were taking a constitutional view on the border issue. Members of the Eire Labour Party stepped in as candidates and further split the Labour vote in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Labour Party, unfortunately, was blotted out in that election. Its reputation, I regret to say, on this issue has been wobbly. I am on record over a period of years in telling the Northern Ireland Labour Party that they must make their position clear on this constitutional issue. Although it is now rather late to decide, they have now come out into the open and declared their


constitutional solidarity with the British Labour Government on this issue.
The Northern Ireland Labour Party is now pursuing a policy which clearly defines its support of the border. As a result, it has broken with the Nationalists for the first time in its history; secondly, it has broken with the Eire Labour Party; and thirdly, and only a few days ago, it expelled those members in its party who belonged to the Anti-Partition League. That is the Northern Ireland Labour Party, which wholeheartedly supports us in this Government and which we on this side of the House ought also wholeheartedly to support. Is it not evident that these members of the Northern Ireland Labour Party, these workers of Northern Ireland, ought to know the Ulster situation and the Ulster mind on this matter? They have taken their decision and I believe they have done the right thing. This border issue has vitiated Labour politics in Northern Ireland for a generation. Hon. Members who do not agree with me must ask themselves this question; why is it that in Northern Ireland we have some of the best organised trade union branches representing almost 100 per cent. membership, and yet they vote Unionist? Quite clearly, this partition issue has vitiated Labour politics in Northern Ireland. These are the men on the spot, who have the right to decide their own future.
This is a matter which concerns me personally. I have in my possession a parchment belonging to my deceased father, who was an old and, I believe, trusted trade unionist, a branch officer for many years in the A.E.U. in Northern Ireland. As long ago as 1913, when Home Rule politics in Northern Ireland were very violent, he joined the Ulster volunteers. He undertook in that parchment to fight to the death if need be for the preservation of the liberties of the Northern Ireland people. There are many in Northern Ireland today, good workers and trusted trade unionists, who would equally sign a declaration in those terms. In face of a threat to force Northern Ireland out of the Commonwealth, hundreds of thousands of Northern Irish workmen would rally to the cause and defend the border. They would fight now as they were prepared to fight in 1913 and 1914 for their right of self-determination. The Bill gives them no other right than that; the right to determine what their future

shall be through their freely elected Parliament. If this Clause were new I could understand the concern of some of my hon. Friends.
I was bold enough to intervene during the speech this afternoon of my hon. Friend the Member for Platting (Mr. Delargy) to point out that this Clause, in almost identical language, was inserted in the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. Then it was not considered, apparently, that it was perpetuating partition, because in that Act machinery was set up to bring North and South together. The Council of Ireland was a most useful idea; it was to consist of 13 members of the lower House and seven senators from both North and South, making 40 in all, meeting together to discuss kindred problems. In time it could have broken down Irish disunity. Regrettably, the Southern Ireland Parliament never met as envisaged, the Irish Free State came into being and the Council of Ireland was never set up. At that time, however, it was hoped that disunity would end through that machinery. With this Clause of a similar nature, I see no reason why—if in the fullness of time the people of North and South can come together—partition should be perpetuated. I hope that such is the movement of international affairs that both the South and the North of Ireland may find themselves united in a wider political integration than that of Ireland alone. I hope that they might find a community of purpose in a Western European union. If they can agree to that, it may well be that we shall break down some of these problems that have disturbed Irish life for so long.
It surprises me that in the 16 years in which Mr. de Valera was in office partition did not become a burning issue. Indeed, Mr. de Valera was a wise enough statesman to know that only at election times need he tilt at the windmill of the border. He was not alone. The other parties flew their flags at the border. Back in office again, Mr. de Valera took no constitutional step whatever apart from the 1936 Act.

Mr. Gallacher: Is it not the case that Mr. de Valera took the all-important step of declaring that his Government was "the Government of Ireland" and accordingly gave it the Gaelic name of Eire?

Mr. Haire: It was quite clear that in that Act Mr. de Valera used that title, but he did nothing more about it to bring about the machinery which would create the reality of the change of which he was making only a myth. It seems to me that Mr. de Valera, now out of office, finds himself looking for an opportunity to get back into power. He thinks that this border issue is the royal—I suppose that I should say "republican"—road hack to power. Now, the Southern Ireland Coalition Government finds itself competing with Mr. de Valera, out-doing "Dev." for electoral favours. If I may say so, having met some of them, many of the statesmen in power in Southern Ireland are new men, men of little experience, who show that inexperience by rushing into this Irish problem where political angels have feared to tread.

Dr. Morgan: They should have called in the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Haire: The Irish question, as my hon. Friend knows perfectly well, has been the graveyard of many political hopes.
I believe the Southern Ireland Government would be well advised to accept this Bill, which is only a recognition of the status quo. They should then endeavour to establish good economic and cultural relations with the North and forget about the bogy of the border. I believe that their threats should be withdrawn, Certainly I think that we in this House will continue to receive them calmly as, I am glad to note, we have done this afternoon.
If they are not satisfied that their case is being properly heard, they can always have recourse to the forum of the United Nations. If their case is submitted there, I have not the slightest doubt what the decision will be. The Labour Government have kept faith with both Northern and Southern Ireland. This Bill enshrines the decision of Southern Ireland to go its Republican way and gives it, at the same time, favoured-nation treatment in the 'going. This Bill also acknowledges the right of Northern Ireland to go its own way and no British Government, least of all this one, can ever sacrifice Northern Ireland on the altar of Southern demagogy. If the people of Northern Ireland under a Tory or Socialist Government continue to say, "No surrender," then

it is our duty in this House to support them in the name of British democracy.

7.2 p.m.

Mr. McGovern: I am quite sure that the Tory Party in this House will be delighted with the speech which we have just heard, for it might well have been made from the Northern Ireland jungle.
In this Measure that is being proposed tonight I find myself in agreement with a large number of hon. Members and with most of the Bill, in attempting to rectify a number of anomalies that are bound to exist upon the declaration of the Republic of Ireland. At the same time I have a fundamental objection to the Clause that stabilises one of the most reactionary and repressive Governments that we have known in Western Europe. It makes permanent the rule of tyranny in government because that Government have employed the whole of their political power for their own economic and financial gain, and they have used the fear that exists between Northern and Southern Ireland of the danger of some form of religious tyranny and repression.
I admit frankly as a realist that there may have been a time when the people in Northern Ireland might have feared Southern repression and intolerance, but they have failed to realise that as time marches on, and as by education the minds of men broaden, the possibility of intolerance and oppression on a religious basis is largely being narrowed and eliminated. The very repression and intolerance of which they complained in their initial propaganda in the North, they have themselves developed, and they have evolved an intolerant machine which represses every minority within their borders in the name of freedom and religion.
I can see the drift that is taking place of which the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Haire) spoke. Harry Midgley went along that precise road. He saw that to be associated with any form of national struggle by the minority in Northern Ireland might put him for a time into the political wilderness, and he went along the road of association with the Unionist Party in Ireland and found himself latterly standing as a Unionist Orange candidate at the last election.

Mr. Haire: I am sure my hon. Friend, would not wish to do me an injustice, and I hope he will not do Mr. Harry Midgley an injustice. Let it be said that Harry Midgley broke with the Northern Ireland Labour Party and formed a Commonwealth Labour Party because of the border issue.

Mr. McGovern: No, that is not the history, although I do not propose to go completely into it here tonight. I spoke with Midgley and with others who know the country. He evolved into the Tory camp because it was the logical road he was travelling at the time. I am depressed at the thought that a Labour Government are laying it down in this Bill that there is to be a permanent estrangement between the North and the South. With the coming of the Labour Government and with the political advance of India, Burma, Egypt, Palestine and other places, I had hoped that they would use their good offices to try to bring about a solution to this problem, and not to give it up by a hopeless surrender to Tory politicians in the North, as they are doing tonight.
Therefore I deplore the fact that Mr. Costello declared for a republic. History will prove that Mr. de Valera is a more astute politician than Mr. Costello, that he has seen the danger that cutting the knot by a declaration of a republic would produce the very result we see tonight, of driving us along the most dangerous road in the history of Ireland. Mr. Costello got power by the political change which was going on, and within his ranks are men who have declared for closer association with this country—for example, Mr. Dillon—who defended the country in the war period and wanted Ireland to support this country in the war. Now they associate themselves with the complete out-and-out Republican idea. It has produced results which probably they never anticipated. My view is that Mr. de Valera saw these dangers but has now come to the rescue of Mr. Costello because Irish opinion is being driven, along this road of wanting a united Ireland.
When people talk in this House about the bitterness of the Southern Irish, I am staggered. There has been nothing but repression, terror and brutality imposed on these people by Englishmen who are annoyed because the Irish have developed

a hatred for them. I admit that they have never forgiven the English politicians or the English people in the way in which the Scots have done. I myself am in the position that my father was an Irishman and my mother was a Scotswoman, and both were born in English-occupied countries. Therefore I know the result of that repression and the struggle that goes on within me between the political sanity of the Scots race and the open antagonism and unforgiveness of the Irish race. I am only to blame because I am a kind of cross-breed.
In a sense the Irish people are struggling for an ideal. What is that ideal? A united Ireland. What is wrong with a struggle for a united Ireland any more than for a united England, Scotland or Wales? There is nothing wrong with it at all, and we should be using all our talents to try to bring these two sections together. If it is right for Northern Ireland people to claim that they should have independence from the South, then it is right for the other areas, such as those represented by the two hon. Members in this House who have a Nationalist majority, to have a complete severance from Northern Ireland on the same basis. I have made inquiries all over Southern and Northern Ireland. When I have, in Southern Ireland, put the question to people who have not the religious faith of Mr. de Valera and Mr. Costello, "Have you any fear of repression on religious grounds in this country?" they have all laughed at the thought. But if I asked the same question in Northern Ireland I had overwhelming evidence of it, and of the gerrymandering of constituencies to maintain the present dominant party in permanent political power.
I have seen the possibility of gradually evolving a state of affairs, for example, through the good offices of the British Government and the United Nations, whereby Northern and Southern Ireland could both have been granted their Parliamentary rights and have a Parliament, that there might be a senate on a federal basis operating in Ireland, and that both parts of Ireland might, on that basis, have maintained Dominion status in the Comonwealth, which would have given them complete liberty of action in their own country. The border could in time have been gradually eliminated as intelligence and reason evolved in the


Irish people themselves. To make the present position something permanent is the most unwise thing that I have seen the Labour Government do during their period of office. I know the good things that this Government have done, but to come here now and in response to the demand of the Northern Ireland Tory reactionaries—this element in Northern Ireland which is second only to the Nazi power in the deeds which it has perpetrated in Northern Ireland—

Sir R. Ross: Do not talk such nonsense.

Mr. McGovern: —to hand over the entire people of Northern Ireland to that junta permanently is a criminal action on the part of the Labour Government.
All my life my aim has been to see a united Ireland. I heard the Leader of the Opposition in Glasgow in the election in 1910, when he swept the whole of Britain in favour of a united Ireland. When the Liberal Party had played with the votes of the Irish people they never carried out the policy which they had put before the electors. We are suffering today from those failures, for the way they made playthings of Irish politics and the voters of this country. I am sure that the Labour Government will come to regard this as one of the worst Bills which they have ever tried to put through this House, and unless there is a pledge to eliminate from the Bill the Clause to which I have been referring, I shall oppose the Bill and vote against it.

7.14 p.m.

Sir William Neill: I thought, Mr. Speaker, that it was very appropriate that Black Rod should enter the Chamber in the midst of an Irish Debate. When you were leading the Members of the Government and the Members of the Opposition into another place one could have wished that you were leading the Members of the Northern Ireland Government, and the Members of the Dail, who had agreed again to become part of the United Kingdom.
A great deal has been said about victimisation of the minority and the lack of good will. I hold the position of Lord Mayor of Belfast, and anything that I have to say will be said with the knowledge that I have to return to my position

and that I shall have to account for anything wrong which I have said. In the Belfast Corporation we have 60 members—47 Unionists and 13 Labour and Nationalist members. They are now facing an election. All those 13 members approached me and expressed their thanks for the way in which they had been received and the help which they had been given to carry out their work. In addition, they expressed their thanks for the friendships made and regretted that owing to divisions in the Labour Party some of them could not return.
I am also a member of the Belfast City and District Water Commissioners, a publicly elected body of 15 members, 13 of whom are Unionists and two Nationalists. Within the last five years those two Nationalists—100 per cent, of them—have been chairmen, and one of them is this year in the chair for the second time. I give these facts only to prove that there is very little victimisation there, and that on the contrary there is evidence of good will. In local authority work in Belfast we have without doubt had nothing but good will amongst all sections who have undertaken that work.
Unfortunately I cannot end there; it would be nice if I could do so, but we have the professional politician, who enters into the Debates, and for some reason uses arguments which widen the gap between the people of Ireland rather than narrow it. These people should be more careful and should try to say something to encourage good will, because the foundation is there. It only requires these people, some of whom have spoken this afternoon to remember that what they have said will injure rather than help the cause which we all have in mind. Threats of force and propaganda will not solve our problem. Surely it would be better to restore confidence in the spoken and written word, for there to be less looking back to alleged wrongs, for the creation of good will by social and business intercourse, for the return of friendliness towards Great Britain by the Irish Republic without attached conditions, and freedom of worship irrespective of religion. When these become a reality, then and only then will it be possible to meet and discuss the future.
Since the war we in Ulster have added 140 new industrial firms to our business


community. Those firms did not come by chance. Investigations are made before such a step is taken, and if there was any truth in these stories of victimisations which we have heard this afternoon these business people would not have brought their firms to Ulster. Through hard work we have built up in Northern Ireland a great industrial unit and a great agricultural unit, and it is our sincere wish that the Republic of Ireland should be equally successful within her own boundaries.
Reference has been made previously today to what Mr. de Valera has said. One of the things which he is reported as having said is that this Bill:
is proposed to perpetuate as far as it can the division of Ireland. It looks as if some malignant spirits must be at work stirring up old animosities.
That is rather a strange statement from a man who to my knowledge has for the past 29 years been doing precisely that.

Dr. Morgan: That is untrue; it is unfair.

Sir W. Neill: I hope that the hon. Member will have an opportunity of speaking after me.

Dr. Morgan: I hope so.

Sir W. Neil: Mr. Costello has said:
We are prepared to be on friendly terms with Great Britain and Northern Ireland and we are prepared to give the north as fair a deal as they can expect.
What do those few words mean—"as far as they can expect"? This to my mind is a peculiar way of wooing a wench, a queer courtship. It starts off by threats and misrepresentation and ends up by party propaganda. These things do not inspire confidence, they do not form a foundation upon which we can discuss our problems. They will have to change their outlook and their ways before we can approach them. After making that statement I feel that those words convey one thing to me, that the courtship is over, and they say to Northern Ireland, "Now, ducky, I love you, let me look after you for the rest of your life." I am afraid that under the conditions that exist at the present time we shall not allow them to look after us. It reminds me of the story of two mother kangaroos, each of which had a baby in its pouch. One of the

babies kept jumping in and out of the pouch and the other baby said, "What is wrong with you?" The first baby replied, "There is nothing wrong with me, but my mother has got the hiccoughs." My point is this. First it was Southern Ireland, then the Irish Free State, and now Eire. They do not know whether to stay in the Empire or not, and that is the relevance of my story.
I am convinced that this Bill will give Northern Ireland the protection she requires and indeed deserves, and I shall have the greatest pleasure in voting for it. I believe it will be to the interests of Eire, Northern Ireland and this Parliament that the position should be defined, and that we should know where we are, and go our way in the future to make our respective areas successful.

7.24 p.m.

Mr. John Beattie: I beg to move, to leave out "now," and at the end of the Question to add "upon this day six months."
It is not my intention to be led down the garden path by some of the speeches that have been made this afternoon. I have listened with amazement to the irrelevancy of some of the speakers, and I wish to make my plea from Irish Labour to British Labour. Speaking on behalf of the Irish Labour Party, I think I am entitled to make that appeal to the British Labour Party. I feel that there is something very unhealthy and unsound about the position which is created by this Bill. In the introduction of this Bill, the Labour Government have brought forward one of the most serious propositions ever undertaken by a British Government against another nation. I happen to be an Ulsterman, and am proud to be an Ulsterman, but prouder still to be an Irishman. People who live in the country and get a very good living from it, and who fail to recognise that they are Irish, remind me of the man who said he had no country. I classify him as like a man with no soul.
I feel that we are entitled to come here and ask this Labour Government to help in the building up of that movement, whereby some day we may be the proud possessors of the seats of the mighty in a Parliament for the whole of Ireland. That is my desire and my wish. I do not wish to travel on any narrow path. I am travelling on the Labour and Socialist


ticket in Ireland just as I am in England. One of the pioneers of the Labour Movement was Keir Hardie. He was a man of outstanding ability and character. He fought and worked for the interests of Ireland and for its unification, along with the interests of the people of the working class. The maturity of his work has been shown in this House. The closest friend and colleague of Keir Hardie was James Connolly, the leader of Irish Labour. We ask in the name of Keir Hardie and James Connolly, "Give an ear to the case from Labour to Labour."
I wish with all my heart that at this moment I could be speaking in favour of an Ireland Bill instead of moving this Amendment. In my 30 years in public life, never once have I cast a vote against Labour or Labour policy. Never once in all that long career have I committed the mortal sin of being found in the Lobby with the Tories. But tonight it will be an unhappy event for me to go into that Lobby—

Earl Winterton: The hon. Member will not find the Tories there.

Mr. Beattie: If it is put to me that nothing can be done with this contentious part of the Bill, if I have that assurance from the Lord President of the Council, then I shall be compelled to go into the Lobby against the Government, and those who wish to follow me will be very welcome. Even if it is one man and one man only, I shall go into the Lobby against the Government because of the injustice which I see inflicted upon a country of which I am proud to call myself a citizen. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I was listening to that sound and, from the Oxford Dictionary, I understand that the sound is derived from a full belly and an empty head. I think that is the meaning of the definition in the Oxford Dictionary.
There are many excellent provisions in the Bill. It contains a statesmanlike recognition of the fact that there are many ties, economic and otherwise, between the two islands. Most of its Clauses bear out the contention that the prosperity of one country is increased, not damaged, by the prosperity of its neighbour. That in itself is good. Unfortunately, I cannot support the Bill

because Clause 1 (1, b) undoes the good work of the rest. It is a bitter reflection that what the Bill gives with one hand it takes away with the other. Those who framed this Bill remind me of a boxer who assists a man to his feet only to knock him down again with a harder blow. Clause 1 (1, b), for the first time in history, endorses partition and sets a seal on it. It destroys even a pretence that the British Government desire to assist in the reunion of Ireland.
What is the position which the Labour Government are so anxious to maintain? There may be some hon. Members who feel that this matter has something to do with old forgotten, far-off battles. These things are not forgotten, nor are they so far off that many of the chief actors are not still living, and I fear that all the battles may not be over. Partition in Ireland was the result of the effective coercion of a majority by a minority—that is a contradiction in terms—aided and abetted by prominent English Tories. This minority in the whole of Ireland in the General Election of 1918 amounted to one-fifth. That was the last time on which a plebiscite of the whole nation was taken. In spite of the fact that 47 candidates were in gaol and that official persecution made electioneering very difficult for all except Unionists, eighty per cent. of the Irish electorate voted for independence.
The setting up of the Six Counties of North-East Ireland as a separate State was carried out without any reference to electoral results. There was no attempt to hold a plebiscite. It was the result of a deal between the so-called Ulster Unionists and their supporters in this country. In his speech on the Government of Ireland Bill, 1920, Carson made this clear. The Unionists themselves determined what area they could conveniently control—six counties out of the nine counties of Ulster. Carson explained:
…but the truth is that we came to the conclusion, after many anxious hours and anxious days of going into the whole matter, almost parish by parish and townland by townland, that you would have no chance of successfully starting a Parliament in Belfast which was to be responsible for the government of Donegal, Cavan, and Monaghan."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th May, 1920; Vol. 129, c. 1315–16.]
Having grabbed as much as they could swallow, including the two counties of


Tyrone and Fermanagh, in which they were, and still are, in a minority, the Unionists received the official sanction for action. They received official sanction from this House to act, and they acted upon that gerrymandered area, selected and defined by Members of this House. They mutilated one of the finest provinces in Ireland, the Province of Ulster, to which I and my forefathers belong and from which came great men who have done valuable service for this country. This gerrymandering by politicians on this side of the channel, and this mutilation of Ulster, was a great disservice.
Hon. Members will remember the Treaty of 1921 which set up the Irish Free State and agreed to partition. That was signed by the Irish delegation when they came here. The late Mr. Lloyd George asked them to sign—" refusal means that we declare war." They were compelled at the point of the bayonet and the muzzle of the revolver of that great British Empire to sign a document which they knew was not in the best interests of their country; but to save the lives of the young men and women of their nation they accepted the position under duress. That is now 28 years ago. Partition was carried out in the name of self-determination of the rights of minorities, and to cries of "No coercion." Did not they leave coercion behind them in the Six Counties? Did not the Ulster Unionists coerce the minority? Are they not continuing to coerce minorities within the Six Counties?
I am one of the minority. I want to be. I have no feeling against the English. I am delighted and honoured to welcome English, Welsh or Scots to the grand and glorious place known as Ireland. There is no feeling in our hearts against the people of Britain. We want to be brothers; we want to be friendly. What we want you to do is to leave us alone, to let us mind our own business and run our own house. Let the two countries come together on external matters which are the concern of both. Let us unite for the common good of both nations.
As a public representative in the Six Counties for a quarter of a century, I have seen a little of the coercion which has taken place since then—the rights of minorities trampled under foot, one safeguard after another abolished as it proved inconvenient for the rulers of the little Statelet which statesmen never tired of

calling British. Proportional representation and Habeas Corpus are but two. The suppression of coroners' inquests, of opposition meetings, police raids, pogroms, gerrymandering and the intimidation of voters are but a few of the weapons in the arsenal of this alleged democracy—weapons that are not allowed to rest unused.
In the General Election of three months ago, I experienced what organised opposition can do. Stones, oranges with razor blades and other peaceful methods of persuasion were used. My election agent was arrested by the police when he protested at their inaction. Hon. Members here do not need to go in search of a police State; they have one at their own door. I came across to this House to seek its protection, so that I might be able to carry on a free election and have the right of free speech. This House, and especially your good self, Mr. Speaker, dealt very kindly with me. I went back and I tried to proceed again in my Division, but organised hooliganism, organised with the criminal intention of tearing me to ribbons, prevented me from proceeding with that election which I was desirous of carrying out. That is not democracy, that is not free speech, that is not free elections, but it is what is carried out in this State known as the Six Counties of North-Eastern Ireland.
This Bill, in addition to making a formal endorsement of partition, by implication also endorses all the actions that I have described. The Unionists are doing their best to continue their already formidable racket. I think of the happenings of 1920. The Ministers in this House had disclaimed all responsibility for those happenings. It is easy to sleep on another man's wounds, as the Irish proverb puts it, and it is also easy to imitate Pontius Pilate and wash your hands, but the verdict of history on Pontius Pilate has scarcely been favourable. Ministers of this Government, whose movement has so often condemned the semi-Fascist rule of the Unionists and declared against partition, are now invited to join in a gigantic hand-washing. You will excuse me, Mr. Speaker, for not participating; I prefer clean water.
Hon. Members of this House may have paid short visits to the Six Counties and


may have read the Unionist propaganda which is showered upon them, and they may have been struck by the ultra-loyalty professed by the Unionists. I would ask them to examine this fervour closely. They will find that it is neither permanent nor disinterested. I have only to refer to the threats that were made before the 1914–18 war. I remember the threats that were made when the Asquith Act was placed on the Statute Book, on condition that Redmond was asked to organise an Irish volunteer movement and Carson was also asked to organise an Ulster volunteer movement. That Act was placed on the Statute Book but was suspended until hostilities had ceased, but the hostilities did not prevent the Ulster Tories from making their declaration. What did the Ulster Tories do?
If Protestant King George does not prevent Home Rule being applied to Ireland, Kaiser Billy will do it.
Those are the words that were used in the speech which made that declaration on Unionist determination. I will read another extract from this declaration, and this is it:
I have only to refer to the threats that the Unionists made immediately before the 1914 war that if Protestant King George did not serve their turn, Protestant Billy the Kaiser would.
Those are the exact words used.

Sir R. Ross: By whom?

Mr. Beattie: The hon. Gentleman knows it.

Sir R. Ross: I do not know it.

Mr. Beattie: I will tell the hon. Gentleman, if he wishes. That was said in 1912 by the men who went to Balmoral to sign the Covenant.

Sir R. Ross: By whom?

Mr. Beattie: By Carson.

Sir R. Ross: He did not say this.

Mr. Beattie: They sent the young men to the war, but they did not go to the war themselves. They were the soldiers of the back benches of the Government in this House.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of the interruptions, is it not the case that the leaders of Ulster not only declared that they would go under the Kaiser, but that they

made a deal with the Germans and got a supply of armaments from the Kaiser? I saw the armaments coming in.

Sir R. Ross: I know that the policy of the Politburo is against us, which is too bad, but the statements made by the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) are entirely wrong. The arms bought were mostly Italian, and we never said that we would work with the Kaiser. Further, most of the Ulster volunteer force now lie buried in the plains of the Somme.

Mr. Beattie: The arms were brought in from Germany with "God and Ulster" upon them. I saw a consignment of the arms, and had them in my possession for a short time. I also saw the solemn league and covenant and I was asked to sign it in blood. The young men who went all the way to Balmoral stopped on the way and went into a slaughterhouse, where they got cow's blood with which to sign it.
I want to bring out this point which it is very important this House should realise. Political propaganda is being made in every direction and by every means, including things that are held sacred in this country and what I would call the ideals of the people of this country. I want to tell this House that at the present moment the Minister of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland is arranging to have Princess Elizabeth and her husband, when they go to Belfast—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Bowles): The hon. Gentleman is not allowed to discuss members of the Royal Family to influence opinion.

Mr. Beattie: This visit is going to be made

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: No reference must be made to any member of the Royal Family doing anything, as I have said.

Mr. Beattie: I will accept that Ruling from you, Sir, and will proceed to the next complaint which I have to make. I was going to say that the tom-toms were to be out, and sectarian passions aroused with the possibility of a pogrom to follow—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is still making an indirect reference to the visit of the Royal Family. No reference is allowed to be made in this


House to the Royal Family which is designed to affect argument. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to leave out all such references in his speech.

Mr. Beattie: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I did not intend to make any reference to the Royal Family, either direct or indirect.
The Unionists frequently express their fears of what might happen if partition were abolished. Anyone living in Ireland must realise that there is something seriously wrong if they have any fears about partition being removed. They are the fears of guilty men who expect that what they have done unto others will be done unto them. However richly they may deserve it, it will not happen if Jack Beattie is alive.
This Bill cannot quiet Unionist fears, because in his heart even the most bellicose Unionist knows that partition is not and cannot be permanent. That is why I consider that Clause 1 (1, b) of this Bill is mischievous, for it will not persuade a single Unionist to change his attitude, or a single Orangeman to rid himself of the sectarianism which makes the Orange Order a blood brother of the Ku-Klux-Klan. In my simplicity, I expected that the creation of a Labour Government in Britain, in view of Britain's Labour policy and past attitude, would mean a renewed effort to wipe out in that country the legacy of an Imperialist past. I was encouraged by their actions in India and Burma. I thought that, but then I was an innocent abroad. I expected that this Government would point out to the Unionists that a garrison mentality was out of date, that the fostering of sectarian views was detestable, and that the greatest service that could be rendered to Ireland and to Britain would be to make their contribution to the building of an Irish nation. This British Government have convinced me that I am wrong. Someone has said:
No one can deny that the English possess one outstanding characteristic, their readiness to forgive those whom they have most grievously wronged.

Mr. Gallacher: That is correct.

Mr. Beattie: If I were a cynic, I would agree, but I hope that this Bill does not make me a cynic. I do not know, or profess to know, what motives prompted the Cabinet to insert this Clause in the

Bill, a Clause which does to Ireland what the Prussian war machine of 1870 and Hitler's war machine did to France. Hon. Members may think the comparison strong, but I can assure them that the French did not feel the loss of Alsace-Lorraine more deeply than the Irish people feel the loss of the Six Counties. The homeland of McCracken and Munro, of Mitchell and Hope, the scene of James Connolly's labours, is as much a part of Ireland as Keir Hardie's Lanark is part of Scotland. The British Labour movement has travelled far since the days of Keir Hardie, but it has not grown more. Socialist. Keir Hardie was the friend and comrade of James Connolly: he shared his hopes for Ireland, and, assisted him financially in his political work. Were he alive today, he might be excused for feeling that expediency had triumphed over ideals in the movement which he pioneered.
This Government are no doubt anxious to avoid raising partition as a General Election issue. The moral they seemed to have drawn from Liberal experiences with Ireland is one of appeasement—appeasement of the Unionists. The Unionists are still an armed conspiracy, a conspiracy reinforced by legal sanction and the apparatus of a police State. This Government in their folly may feel that this Bill is a masterly settlement of the so-called Irish problem. To my mind it is a sowing of dragons' teeth. May they not spring up as armed men. But if they do spring up, let the blame be assigned to this Government—the hand that casts them.
I have passed most of my life under the difficult conditions which prevail in the Six Counties. It had been my hope to see the Labour movement, both trade union and political, growing to its full stature in my native country. Many Irishmen have helped in the growth of the British Labour movement, but in return they have had little assistance for their own. The trade union movement has been split, grievously split, and the end is not yet. The stifling of the political movement is the direct outcome of partition, and not all the Treasury Bills or organisers in Transport House can build an effective Labour Party in the Six Counties. This Bill is the greatest gift to Toryism in Ireland since the Black and Tans.
I was much interested in a recent speech of the Foreign Secretary's on the future of Germany. In it he expressed his desire to see a new democratic Germany, and suggested that a commission should consider the question of Germany's Eastern areas. I suggest that, instead of presenting this subsection (1, b) with its terrifying possibilities, the Government should ask such a commission to examine Ireland's North-Eastern area. It may be embarrassing to acknowledge British responsibility for the state of affairs there, but at least it will enable British spokesmen to point out motes or beams in other eyes without feeling that they have one planted in their own. Here is one of these beams. I have in my hand a register of a school polling station in my own division in Belfast. [An HON. MEMBER: "Read all of it."] Oh, no. On the pages of this book is a surprising number of names of people who are on the register but have no local government vote. Out of 5,000 names on that register, 3,000 people do not qualify for the vote, although they are
over the age of 21. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because of the fear and trembling of the Ulster Unionist Party at the determination of the youth of Ulster to put them out.

Mr. Bramall: How is it that a person is on the register and yet has no vote? Surely, being on the register is a qualification to vote.

Mr. Beattie: Every person over the age of 21 in this country has the vote—

Mr. Bramall: No, everyone who is on the register.

Mr. Beattie: In the rest of Ireland that right was granted 16 years ago, but that is not the case in Northern Ireland. People over the age of 21 are on the Parliamentary register for elections to this House, but they are not on the Parliamentary register for local government elections. It may be that this Government thinks that by this Clause it will earn the gratitude of the Unionists. If so, they should have a glance at this cartoon which I have in my hand. I will give it to the Home Secretary if he wishes. This is the Unionist official organ, and in this cartoon the Socialist Cabinet are depicted as repulsive apes in a steel cage.

That is what this Government got last Christmas as a Christmas and New Year's present. Perhaps hon. Members can see the Lord President of the Council hanging up in a corner of this cartoon. I should say that the present Socialist Front Bench are just as decorative and beautiful as any. However, I assure the Cabinet that they are exceedingly fortunate to escape with a few cartoons and some hard words. Opposition Labour Parties in the Six Counties are decidedly less lucky, myself included.
Anybody who has the slightest acquaintance with Irish history will know that it presents a regular pattern. When constitutional reform is refused, the physical force movement emerges. Mr. de Valera uttered a bitter truth when he said that this latest endorsement of partition would produce in the young men of this generation a growing hate of those responsible for its maintenance. Mr. Costello hoped to take the gun out of politics, but this Bill can spell the death of these hopes. I am not a physical force man; I do not believe in physical force. I condemned it in the Mansion House in Dublin, and I condemn it on every platform on which I stand. I do not believe it takes us anywhere. I appeal to the Government with all the strength at my command, before it is too late to help Mr. Costello. The Prime Minister has received a message from the Labour Party in the Dail, signed by Mr. Norton, the Vice-Premier. I beg of him to consider it carefully, for it is the authentic voice of Irish Labour.
I appeal to hon. Members in this House to recollect what they are asked to do—to endorse the regime in the Six Counties. Let them ask themselves what is wrong there, when a Government finds it necessary to suspend Habeas Corpus under its Special Powers Act, not for one but for 27 years, when its supporters resort to violance at elections, and when it has a special police composed of its own party members, and that special police force is 12,000 strong, paid for and maintained out of public funds. I wonder sometimes, when the Chancellor is looking for money, whether he should not look towards the elimination of the allocation of that monew for political purposes in Northern Ireland. Surely, when after more than a quarter of a century this state of affairs still continues, there is grave suspicion of the wisdom of giving


support to such a junta and of endorsing the partition which brought it into existence. [Interruption.] I will be finished in three seconds—which is an Irish five seconds.
This Bill will bring no advantage either to the British Labour Party or to Great Britain as a whole. It will not satisfy the Unionists, who know in their hearts that partition must go sooner or later. It will leave among Irish people everywhere a just resentment. Even on the ground of expediency, whether militantly, politically or otherwise, it will prove a disaster to those who framed it. It heals nothing; in fact, it rubs salt into the wound. It revives old hates and old feuds, it pours poison into the stream of Anglo-Irish relations which so recently was losing its muddiness. By clinging to a dying imperialism it fosters in Ireland an exaggerated over-conscious nation-alism—

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: The hon. Member is on his last page.

Mr. Beattie: The hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) takes ample time when he is speaking in this House.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: I do not read my speeches.

Mr. Beattie: If the hon. Member thinks that I am speaking from notes because the knowledge at my disposal is not adequate, he is making a grave mistake. I have no objection to other Members using notes, and I think it is unbecoming that the hon. Member should cast aspersions at me.

Mr. Boyd-Carpenter: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. May I seek your guidance? I understood that it is a Rule of this House that, although reference may be made to notes, speeches cannot be read. As I understand it, not only has the hon. Member been reading from a manuscript for some considerable time, but he does not deny that fact. May I seek your guidance as to whether that is in Order?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Technically and strictly the hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) is quite right but the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. J. Beattie) did not say he was reading word for word; he said

he was using ample notes, and that is allowed. Quite frankly, however, the practice is growing too much, in my opinion.

Mr. Beattie: I am sorry if any friction has arisen. I think I have taken in a homely way any badgering which I have received during my remarks.
This Bill solves nothing, least of all the Irish problem. As long as partition remains, so long will British Governments find it haunting them. Let this Government lay it by withdrawing this accursed Clause and by playing their part. Let them undo the harm of centuries by helping to unite Ireland. Let them earn the friendship of those whom their predecessors have most grievously wronged.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. Mulvey: I beg to second the Amendment.
I feel it is futile on my part, or the part of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Beattie), to stand up in this House and protest against British shackles being fastened upon Ireland, especially as the Labour Party are about to tighten them with, I feel, the collusion of the Tories of Northern Ireland. As the hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. McGhee) said today, when the results of the General Election in 1945 became known, the Irish people, North and South, with the exception of the Diehard Tories of the North-East corner of the country, heaved a sigh of relief. They felt confident that the return of a Socialist democratic Government in this country would effect political changes in Ireland and, consequently changes in the deplorable and undemocratic conditions that have existed in Northern Ireland for 25 years, changes which would make for friendship between our two countries. Now they are surprised to see, after the short space of four years, that the Labour Government in this Bill give definite assurances, with guarantees, to the Tories of Northern Ireland and set at defiance the wishes of the Nationalists of that area and the wishes of four-fifths of the whole Irish people. Sections of the Labour Party in this country have repeatedly during the past 25 years protested against the division of Ireland and now a Labour Administration at Westminster submit a Bill to make partition


permanent and to deny liberty and justice to the overwhelmingly Nationalist areas of Tyrone, Fermanagh, Derry City, South Down and South Armagh.
I do not know whether the Government here realise the seriousness of their action at this stage, but I feel I am not misstating the facts when I assert here tonight that the proceedings in this House today open up the probability of a vista more disturbing in Anglo-Irish relations than has existed for the past 40 years. The present attitude of the Government here is amazing, especially so at a time when the world is yet in a disturbed state and when the big Powers, including Great Britain and the other nations in Western Europe, are endeavouring to effect reconciliation between opposing States with the object of bringing lasting peace to the world.
As hon. Members in this House know, Anglo-Irish relations have formed tragic chapters in British misgovernment in Ireland down the centuries, and in the middle of this twentieth century, following two world wars, when the main theme of British statesmen is the advocacy of justice for small nations and the cessation of strife between nations, it is amazing that a Labour democratic Government should embark on such a legislative Measure as will tend to perpetuate strife in Ireland and renew strife between Ireland and Gnat Britain when most people realise that in recent years a better feeling has been growing up between the two countries.
A Labour Administration at Westminster was always looked on by Irish people as the friend of Ireland and not an enemy as were previous party Governments in this country. Undoubtedly, it will be agreed, it was a Tory-Liberal combine which forced partition upon Ireland, yet Ministers of that combine never intimated that that division would be permanent and never made any attempt by way of legislation to make it permanent. These same authors of partition, the Tories and Liberals, never undertook in any way to give public assurance that the constitutional position of the Six Counties would not be changed without the consent of the people of Northern Ireland. As far as I know, no such guarantee was given until that given by the right hon.

Gentleman, the Prime Minister, in Autumn last. Now that guarantee, and more than that guarantee, is embodied in this Bill. In the statement last October it was said there would be no change without the consent of the people of Northern Ireland; now this guarantee is given that it shall not be made without the consent of the Northern Ireland Parliament.
That guarantee is embodied in this Bill and it goes much further than any provisions in the Act of 1920. According to the wording of the first Clause of this Bill the onus for ending Partition now rests on the Parliament of Northern Ireland. Under the Act of 1920 that onus rested upon the Parliament at Westminster, but under this Measure it has been transferred to the Parliament of Northern Ireland. In every respect the present Labour Administration has gone further to consolidate partition than any previous Government.
This Bill declares for the territorial integrity of Northern Ireland and in effect states that no part of the territory of Northern Ireland will have the right to secede even if the majority of the whole of any area desire secession. Taken in its major aspect this Bill contains provisions which I can definitely say are a gross violation of the democratic principles common to the Labour movement and a denial to the whole Irish people of the right of self-determination. Ireland, as Lord Samuel recently said in the British House of Lords, is a mother country. The whole country was one unit and designed by God to be one unit. It was one unit under British law until partition was forced upon it.
In an election over 30 years ago, four-fifths of the Irish people voted for national freedom, with only one-fifth in the North-East corner against it. There would be the same result today if a plebiscite were taken throughout the whole country. In Northern Ireland, more than one-third of the people desire to be united with the rest of the nation, that one-third being largely in Tyrone, Fermanagh, Derry City and large areas in the border counties of Armagh and Down. These people, under the provisions of this Bill, will be debarred from re-union with the rest of the country which they so much desire.
It will be admitted by all fair-minded people, that coercion of the Irish people is written into the partition Act of 1920, but coercion more intensified is written into the present Bill, especially in the case of Tyrone and Fermanagh and other places in Northern Ireland, which cover an area almost one-half of the whole Six Counties. It compels the majority in these areas to live under an administration they do not desire. In the view of all fair-minded people, it is blatant coercion to compel over one-third of the people of Northern Ireland to live under a Belfast Tory régime, which denies them the elementary principles of democracy by rigging constituencies and placing the control of administration of affairs in the hands of a minority of Tories. Under this Bill, as stated a few days ago by an Irish Labour leader, democracy has been put in chains in Northern Ireland, and by none other than a British Labour Government. Yet democracy is the principle which the British Labour Party in this country are so fond of preaching for the benefit of other countries further afield.
The Irish people have often been told by British statesmen that when Ireland is able to settle its own affairs, any Government in this country will be glad. Considering the real record in Ireland, I say that this is downright hypocrisy on the part of British statesmen. When did this Government or any other Government in this country give the Irish people a chance to settle their differences amongst themselves? If they had given them that chance years ago, then possibly all these differences—and little differences they are and not of great magnitude—would have been settled. But the administration in this House never wanted this Irish question to be settled. I say that this Government are hypocritical because they did not want this question to be settled. Previous Governments and the present Government have continued meddling in Irish affairs and doing everything possible to bolster up the administration in Northern Ireland, while at the same time asking why the Irish people do not settle the matter for themselves. By this Bill they are backing up one section of the community and adopting a ludicrous attitude. Their hyprocrisy should be clear to the whole world.
By the provisions of this Bill and by the transfer of all powers to Belfast for the continuation of partition, it is clear

that the British Labour Government have frustrated every attempt to bring about unity of Ireland.

Mr. W. Wells: Shame.

Mr. Mulvey: I say that definitely, because no Government have given the Irish people any assistance to settle their own differences. That has never been done by any Government. I say, from my experience of this Parliament and from our history of politics, while I admit we have the bulk of British labour with us, and I appreciate the support we have had, that no Government who have been in office for a very long time have done more to perpetuate partition than the present Labour Government.
The Prime Minister, in introducing this Bill, referred to the position in Ireland as being analogous with that of India. But the people of India decided their own fate and have had, so far as I know, the assistance of the British Government. The position in Ireland is entirely different. Furthermore, the British Government have divided Ireland against the sanction of any section of the Irish people and contend that that is valid and lasting for all time. What do Members think should be the natural feeling of Ireland, Ireland being a small country, in submitting to a portion of their territory being cut off by the British Government without the sanction of any section of the Irish people? I say that the Irish people will regard that as an aggressive act and will never forgo their just claim for the unity of their country. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) said that realities should be faced in this question, but he and I may not agree about the realities in relation to Ireland. Ireland being a small country designed by God to be one, I as an Irishman like thousands of my fellow countrymen, will never give up the fight until the country is again re-united.
I do not wish to be cynical in any way, but I want to refer again to what the Prime Minister said in introducing the Bill. I consider that he was not sufficiently lucid. He should have elaborated at greater length the advantages which this Measure will afford to the Tories of Northern Ireland. He affirmed that the situation, status and territory of Northern Ireland would remain, and he declared


that no part of it would be permitted to secede even if the people there desired secession. I think he would have been justified in adding that the Tories in Northern Ireland under this Bill will have full control guaranteed to them, full liberty to continue their work of gerrymandering, to continue to deprive other people of work, to continue in their desire to have dual voting under the company franchise system, to continue the denial of free speech for their political opponents, and to impose other disabilities on them to the extent of depriving Nationalists of their fair share of houses—which is done by the minority-controlled public boards, especially in Tyrone and Fermanagh. I say in conclusion that any hon. Member of this House or any Britisher who expects the Irish people to accept complacently the maintenance of the existing situation really does not know the spirit of the Irish people. This Bill will undoubtedly be passed, but I feel it will have repercussions in Ireland, and amongst Irish people elsewhere, which will not redound to British prestige in the world.

8.31 p.m.

Sir Ronald Ross: I have listened with interest, occasionally with pleasure, to the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Beattie) and to the hon. Member for Fermanagh and Tyrone (Mr. Mulvey) moving the rejection of this Bill. I have seldom heard so much sound and fury. I do not know that it signifies very much. The most startling fact was the announcement by the hon. Member for West Belfast that he represented the Northern Ireland Labour Party, because, as I understand it, the official Northern Ireland Labour Party has not only expelled him but expelled anybody who supports him.

Mr. Beattie: I said I represented the Irish Labour Party, which represents Labour in Northern Ireland, Southern Ireland, East and West.

Sir R. Ross: I see. So the poor old official Northern Ireland Labour Party, which is affiliated to the party opposite—

Mr. Delargy: No, it is not.

Sir R. Ross: —is all wrong, and is just making a mistake. It does not consider, however, that the hon. Member does represent it. However, I think we

ought to get back to realities. The hon. Member for West Belfast, during the recent Election, had the misfortune that somebody threw an orange at him, but missed him and hit the chairman. However, he has never stopped screaming for help ever since. If things really were so desperate in the election as he said they were, when he was rejected by an enthusiastic majority, we should imagine that he would have been able to show some physical sign of that, some bruise, perhaps; or, perhaps, his spectacles would have been broken, instead of which he is all in one piece, and was effectively protected by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
I think we had better realise for a moment what is the objection that these two hon. Members have to this legislation. They object to that portion of the Bill which says that Northern Ireland shall not be in terfered with except by its own consent. This proposition has been treated by both hon. Members as if there were something in the Bill like the well-known law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not, and something which said that nothing can ever shift, change, or remove Northern Ireland. That is not what the Bill says at all. It merely says one thing: there shall be no coercion. When I remember the amount of talk there was, the number of protests that there used to be, about coercion in the other direction, and now hear this clamour that Northern Ireland should be subject to coercion—

Mr. Delargy: No.

Sir R. Ross: —in order to create the unity of all Ireland—

Mr. Mulvey: No.

Sir R. Ross: It is so. What the Bill says is that there shall be no coercion, and that if there is to be an alteration of the status, that change has to be by the will of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and not by coercion from outside.

Dr. Morgan: It says nothing of the kind. Let the hon. Gentleman read it.

Sir R. Ross: That is what the Bill says. [Interruption.] I know most of the constituents of the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern) will come under this Bill and vote as subjects of Eire. I sympathise with his position.

Mr. McGovern: The hon. Gentleman is making the greatest blunder in his life. There are not 20 per cent. of the people of my division who are Irish.

Sir R. Ross: I listened to the hon. Member's speech. I have heard many good speeches from the hon. Member, but I do not think that I have ever heard a sillier one than the one he made today.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: Is it in Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for the hon. Gentleman to speak to you in that manner?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is not addressing his remarks to me.

Sir R. Ross: I was addressing the hon. Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern). I was saying that I have heard him make many good speeches, but of his speeches this was the silliest. This is a sad occasion because I think all of us on all sides of the House regret that the people of Eire should have taken this step of leaving the association of the British Commonwealth. I think that is foolish and must cause all Members, with a very few exceptions, great regret. After all, the Commonwealth owes a lot to the efforts of men from that part of Ireland which has now become a Republic. Many of them have served very faithfully and distinguished themselves under the Union Jack; possibly Ireland has gained greater glory and a greater reputation from what it has done under that flag than it has since the Irish Free State had a tricolour.
The treatment of the nationals of Eire is probably the most generous treatment of nationals not associated in a political association, ever given by one country to another. They have all the rights of British subjects. They have some of the burdens, but when one thinks that in Great Britain a citizen of Eire can qualify for a vote in one day but does not qualify for military service until he has been here for two years, it seems to me that he gets a good deal of the best of the bargain.
I do not think that the Government are entirely well-advised to make this so broad. As the hon. Member for the University of Wales (Professor Gruffydd) has pointed out, these non-aliens, the citizens of Eire, who properly owe allegiance to another State which is an independent Republic, can take part in our politics and vote. Are they not under an obligation to cast their vote to assist the country

to which they owe allegiance rather than the country in which they live? I think that is rather a disadvantage and a drawback to the scheme of citizenship. As I understand the position, the Republic of Eire is to be treated as if it were a Dominion, and it will gain advantages in trade which do not go to foreign countries under the most-favoured nation clause. That is another thing which seems to me liable to build up trouble for this Government or any other Government that occupies the Treasury Bench in the future.
As regards the name—the Republic of Ireland—that is a definite mistake. I do not agree with the Prime Minister that we are obliged to introduce into our legislation a description merely because it is in the legislation of other countries with which we are dealing. As the hon. Member for the University of Wales said, it is obviously put in as a challenge. To use his words, they are calling themselves the Republic of Ireland in order to further their pretensions to be the Republic of the whole of Ireland, and the Government should not be party to a policy they repudiate. I think it very unwise that the Government should have in their Bill something which is not true. As it states quite definitely that this Republic consists only of a part of Ireland, the description of the Republic of Ireland is misleading.
Why was this new Republic treated so generously? Partly, as has been candidly explained, it was a matter of convenience. I agree that it was obviously a convenience not to have to deal with a vastly increased number of aliens. But I think it was chiefly in order to create a friendly feeling with the people of Eire. Let us see what has happened. No friendly feeling has been created. There has been violent abuse, not only of Ulstermen, who are accustomed to it, but even of right hon. Gentlemen of the Labour Party of the United Kingdom. As was pointed out by the Prime Minister, when these arrangements were made for the Republic to exist, it was known to the Prime Minister of Eire that any such action must make the partition even more permanent than it was before. They knew that. I had not heard that made known until the Prime Minister announced it today, but it is perfectly clear that they went into this with their eyes open, dangling the usual bait of Irish good will.


How often have I seen the bait of Irish good will hung before a patient Parliament which has passed one thing after another in the hope of getting Irish good will? In giving these unexampled advantages to Eire and to the citizens of this new Republic, the Government hoped that, as they had done something quite unheard-of to the advantage of these people, as they see it, they would then get a show of good will. Not a bit of it. We are told that there is no good will. Mr. de Valera even goes so far as to say he does not care if Britain ceases to exist or to have any force. But that is so similar to his attitude during the war, that it does not mean any practical change. What I am perfectly clear about is that no good will has been obtained.
We are now told that the good will is dependent on the abolition of what they call partition. Of course, we must remember that the original partition which took place at the instance of Sinn Fein, who accepted it at the instance of Southern Ireland, was a partition of the United Kingdom. Ireland has never been a political entity since the days of Grattan's Parliament, when it was governed by what I am sure would be described as "a bunch of Protestant landlords." I do not think that even the hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Delargy) would care about that sort of determination. We are also told that if partition is done away with we shall get the good will of Ireland. The Irish are realists, and I can tell hon. and right hon. Gentlemen what would happen if we were to give what is asked. We should get the contempt of Northern Ireland, whose people would know perfectly well that the Government of this country had abandoned their only true friends—the only friends who stand at their side in peace and war—in Ireland because of pressure that was put upon them. We should get no more good will than we get from giving this really remarkable position to the new Republic and its citizens; and from people in Ireland and from history we should get profound contempt.
The present attempt to bully this Parliament is one of the most ill-conceived gestures that Mr. Costello has yet achieved, because it is the wrong way to approach the question or to approach this Parliament; and it is certainly the wrong way to approach Northern Ireland.

There was the admission by the hon. Member for Platting that it is hopeless to persuade Northern Ireland—

Mr. Delargy: I said the Northern Ireland Parliament.

Sir R. Ross: —the Northern Ireland Parliament; but the Northern Breland Parliament represents Northern Ireland—

Mr. Delargy: Nonsense!

Sir R. Ross: —and the sooner people realise that the better, because the people of Northern Ireland can have recourse to the courts if they do not like anything in the elections and say that they are ill-judged and ill-done. The courts are a reserved service; they are not subject to the Government of Northern Ireland. Those elections, if anything has ever proved anything at all, have proved the abhorrence which the people of Northern Ireland have for any idea of being subject to a Government from Dublin. Of course, the leaders of the Eire Government have left no stone unturned to emphasise the existence of abhorrence on our part of them. They have never failed to take any steps which would offend us; they have never hesitated to do that, from the time when a protest was made at the arrival of American troops in Northern Ireland to defend the liberties of the world. They have never hesitated, even with their postage stamps, to do every single thing which could possibly alienate Northern Ireland from any sympathy with their way of political thought.

Mr. Delargy: The hon. Gentleman says that never was a gesture of friendship made from Dublin towards Belfast. Surely he will remember, with some generosity, that when Belfast was blitzed the Dublin fire brigade and ambulances, without any request whatever, went to Belfast to help their fellow Irishmen.

Dr. Morgan: And in record time.

Sir R. Ross: That certainly was so. That was an individual effort of the fire brigades coming to our assistance when Belfast was bearing its share of the war. In the numbers of people killed from air raids in the whole of the United Kingdom, Belfast stands eighth on the list. From neutral Eire came gallant and good gesture by the fire brigades. I give them


absolute credit for doing so. They worked with our fire brigades and did the best they could to put out the fires. But at the same time the lights of neutral Dublin were the best fix for bombers raiding Liverpool that anyone could possibly have. I have seen the plots of aircraft proceeding on their course until they got their fix, and then turning eastwards. I was complaining not of the occasional kindly thought, but that in the political field every action of the Government of Eire has made the grand canyon between us deeper than it was before.
The present Prime Minister of Eire was elected on a definite pledge of staying inside the Commonwealth, but apparently he has been hypnotised by Mr. McBride and nobody who knows poor Mr. McBride's family history would expect him to be friendly to this country. Within six months of being elected on that pledge the present Prime Minister of Eire announced that he was going outside the Commonwealth, which seems to me to be a betrayal of those who voted for him. When he makes sneering observations about our Prime Minister, he might at all events learn the simple lesson that we have a Prime Minister who is true to his pledges. [Interruption.] I do not know what particular skirmish is going on, but I will pass to another part of what I want to say.

Mr. McGovern: I said, "Join the Labour Party."

Sir R. Ross: We are told from time to time that the people of Fermanagh and Tyrone are oppressed. We want something more than mere ex parte statements from people with a political end in view. It is well known to any student of history that when people are oppressed, beginning with the Israelites in Egypt, there tends to be an exodus unless some obstacle is set up to prevent them from getting out of the country. Why is it that the people of Fermanagh and Tyrone, who in some cases have only to take a twopenny bus ride to get into the land of promise, have never done so? Why is it that the rate of emigration from this land of promise, Eire, is much higher than the rate of emigration from Fermanagh and Tyrone? Why is it that the hon. Member who seconded the Motion for the rejection of this Bill, and whose rich Connaught accent we enjoy, reminds us that he is not a native of Fermanagh and Tyrone,

but went there from Connaught because he preferred it?

Mr. Mulvey: The hon. Member will be able to tell the House how many from Belfast are living in Cork City.

Sir R. Ross: I have not been provided with statistics about how many from Belfast are living in Cork, but I know that the hon. Member for Fermanagh and Tyrone, who started life in the happy Utopia of Connaught, hugs his chains and prefers to live under the oppression of Northern Ireland in Tyrone and Fermanagh. We all know that the demand is not for freedom from oppression but that a desire for mastery is at the bottom of it, and also that the occasional cry at Fermanagh and Tyrone—which enjoy not a large but a constant majority for the hon. Members who represent the Nationalist cause—should be transferred to what is now an Irish Republic. is uttered simply with the object of crippling the State of Northern Ireland.
Actually the territory has been twice accepted by the government of the territory which is now the Republic. First it was accepted in the Treaty subject to, a boundary commission; secondly, in 1925, by the 40th Act of the Dail, the Irish Free State accepted the present territory of Northern Ireland without adjustment. There was an adjustment made under the impartial presidency of a South African judge but they would not have it; they did not want it. They preferred to confirm that Northern Ireland should remain as it now is. There must be no mutilation of Northern Ireland. It is a political entity which has existed for more than a quarter of a century. The whole object of this question about Fermanagh and Tyrone is simply an attempt to mutilate Northern Ireland, and is looked upon as a step towards its complete destruction.
No one is now such a fool as to suppose that if Fermanagh and Tyrone were handed to the Irish Republic on a platter they would be appeased. They would not be appeased for 20 seconds: they would merely say, "We have got this much; now boys, all together and we will get some more." That would involve handing over many more Unionists. Many Unionists who have already been handed over and are living


in what is now Eire, would prefer to live in Northern Ireland. I know that when I meet people from East Donegal.

Mr. Delargy: Why do they not emigrate?

Sir R. Ross: A lot of them have done so. My old batman, who lived at Manorcunningham, is now in Northern Ireland, and many others have also left Eire for a very good reason.
It is wise to have left the decision of whether we remain as we are and as we have always been—part of the United Kingdom—to the Parliament of Northern Ireland. The days are past when large blocks of population could be handed over as the dowries of queens, etc., without their consent. In these days the consent of the people is an essential. They must not be handed from one community to another arbitrarily and by coercion. The only thing that is laid down in this Bill is that there shall be no coercion of Northern Ireland. So far there is absolutely no suggestion of any title to Northern Ireland by this new Republic, except the geographical one; there is not a shred of support of any other type. We know it is suggested that they might wish to go before various foreign tribunals or bodies, and the less those bodies knew about our affairs the better it would suit the Government of Eire. I can assure this House of one thing: we who have been British subjects by birth will remain British subjects, and any decision of a foreign tribunal would not be good enough. We are the King's men, and that we remain.

8.59 p.m.

Major Sir David Maxwell Fyfe: We now come to the last stages of the consideration of the Second Reading of this Bill, and I think that everyone in the House will agree that such consideration falls into two parts. The first part concerns the method of dealing with the people of Southern Ireland who now become citizens of the new Republic. The other aspect is the declaration that Northern Ireland remains part of His Majesty's Dominions and of the United Kingdom, and will so remain until its Parliament decides otherwise. As one might expect, the first consideration, which involves the terms of the gift that is being made to this country, has received somewhat less attention. That

unfortunately is very often the fate of gifts. And the points that were raised regarding it were largely contained in the speech of the hon. Member for the University of Wales (Professor Gruffydd).
I wish to deal with one or two of those points, because they may have raised a certain amount of misgiving in the minds of some hon. Members. I do not share the difficulty of the hon. Member and his trouble with regard to the conflict of allegiance. Obviously, if someone from Southern Ireland comes over here and, taking advantage of the gift, gets a job here, whatever it may be, he will not take that job without the obligations which it entails; even if those obligations include taking the Oath of Allegiance. He will give that allegiance. I would remind the hon. Member that the idea of local allegiance, commensurate with residence and the benefits received from the country in which a person resides, is one of quite old and distinguished ancestry. It was quite recently tried successfully at the courts by the learned Attorney-General in a well known case.
I do not see that the conception which underlies this part of the Bill of an extension of local allegiance to cover these problems will cause any difficulty in its working out. To my great regret I missed the first 10 minutes of the speech of the Prime Minister, for reasons which could not be avoided, and I now apologise, but I think I am the first to claim that this is not wholly novel. There is a precedent, as a matter of interest, if the House will forgive me for going back nearly 200 years. It is interesting to note that in 1761 the three countries of France, Spain and the two Sicilies did put a clause in their treaty that the nationals of each country should not be foreigners in the dominion of another. I believe that whereas that rested on the dynastic affiliations between the relations of the countries, the line we are taking rests on the far firmer and surer basis of commonsense. But, on the other hand, let us face the facts fairly and without disguise.
In the first place, to work this out fully one would have to go over the Statute Book almost completely and see how it worked out, certainly in a large number of fields of law. I do not think that anyone has had the time or the industry to do that. Therefore we are taking a certain amount of chance and we must face that fact.
The second point which we must face—and I ask hon. Members who have put very forcibly the point of view of the Irish Republic to consider this point—is that we are at the present time facing the possible repercussions of taking this course on the development of the British Commonwealth at one of the most critical moments of its existence. We must face the fact, wherever we sit and whatever our view, that this intermediate position for citizens of the Irish Republic may have the effect in some minds of weakening the desire to remain in the Commonwealth. They argue that all the advantages are obtainable without remaining in; therefore, why remain in? I say that now, when the Commonwealth as a whole is taking new shape, when we are faced with the problem of incorporating and co-operating with Asiatic Dominions in a way which we have never had to do before, to take the risk of this difficulty, as is being done today, shows once again the faith and courage of this country to face difficulties when it is a question of making up its mind what is right. We have done it, and that is something which hon. Gentlemen who have many criticisms to offer should bear in mind. I do not believe that there is any other country in the world which at a critical moment in its history would have the faith and courage to take so difficult a course.
The other point which I wish to make clear is that, of course, I agree with the Prime Minister that there are great advantages and support to be gained from remaining in the Commonwealth. This must not be minimised and it is no desire of mine so to do. But the other question which I think affects all our minds is that of the special situation of Ireland due to its proximity and the connections of many centuries. I believe that the ordinary person looking at this problem has been impressed not by the legalistic difficulties, which it takes a non-lawyer like the hon. Member for the University of Wales to conjure up, but by three ordinary commonsense points. We are recognising the facts of association between the two countries. We are recognising that citizens of the Republic are to be found as valuable members of society in all walks of life, including the service of the Crown, and that it would be unreasonable to embark on the upheaval which would be necessary to ensure that they all opted to be British or registered as aliens, in the latter case losing jobs in which they

are doing well. Thirdly, in my view 'to turn into aliens the citizens of the Republic who are travelling to and fro and living here would be an unreasonable course.
There are two points which I should like to mention before I pass to the other aspect of the matter. The Prime Minister told us that it was hoped that the Eire Government would review their nationality law in respect of other members of the Commonwealth. In view of the fact which he indicated that an amount of present legislation, if I may so call it, which does not go as far as ours, is based on subsidiary orders and the like, we hope that this will be done. The other point which I hope the Lord President has had a chance of looking at is the drafting of Clause 1 to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) drew attention. After the usual introductory words which show legislation by the King in Parliament, it then says:
(1) Parliament hereby—
(a) recognises and declares—
So far as we can find, that is a novel form of drafting, and we should like to know the reason for that course, as it is not yet apparent to my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself. When considering these points on this part of the Bill, despite the well-supported pessimism of my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Sir R. Ross) we did hope, and we still hope, for greater co-operation and friendship, and we are conscious of the fact—and we believe it will become more pressing as the days pass—that there are colder and fiercer gales beating on both our countries alike, in the face of which we ought to stand together in defence of the triple heritage of Western civilisation. We hope, and I make no apology for putting it seriously, and with such force as I can command, to hon. Gentlemen who are so deeply moved on this matter, that this is one of the fundamental things on which the world will go to happiness or the reverse, and I do appeal again for consideration of the closer friendship and co-operation which we hope will be the result of the steps we are taking.
I pass to the second point which is that, as the Bill says, the course which we propose to take with regard to the citizens of the new Republic does not


and cannot mean that Northern Ireland, which always has been and still is—and I quote from the Bill—
part of His Majesty's dominions;
and of the United Kingdom, is going to have its position changed contrary to its wishes. Again, without traversing ground which has been so clearly traversed in the Prime Minister's speech, we must remind hon. Gentlemen who have spoken so warmly that it is by the action of Eire in cutting the last link that they have demonstrated the view to the world and to everyone that they consider that cutting the link in that way is more important than removing partition, because they know and everyone knows and no common sense can refuse to recognise, that the ending of partition became a difficulty, indeed almost an impossibility, by that very act of theirs. I do feel that, in deference to the arguments which hon. Gentlemen have advanced, that I should say a word or two about it.
The hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Delargy), whose sincerity I of course accept and admire, advanced the view that this was a gratuitous hostility introduced into the Bill. May I put it to him that we are, as I have indicated, recognising a change made by Southern Ireland itself and shaping that change in statutory form. When that change is being recognised and shaped, clearly, then, if at any time, we must make obvious and demonstrably clear what is going to happen to the rest of the island of Ireland. There has been no occasion since 1921 when we have had legislation concerning Southern Ireland without making clear what the position is, and I believe it was essential that that should be done. However, I also think that the hon. Gentleman—and the same applies to the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Beattie) and the hon. Gentleman the junior Member for Fermanagh and Tyrone (Mr. Mulvey)—has not answered the point first put by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Haire) in an interruption, and later developed in his speech, that it is impossible, on facts and dates, to suggest that Northern Ireland was established or maintained by force. That is the point which I have waited to see developed in the speeches—I have listened to them all with great care—and I have found the

evidence for that suggestion entirely lacking.
The hon. Gentleman might make some argument with regard to the Treaty of 1921. He might even make a further argument in regard to the vote in the Dail in 1922, but he cannot make any argument with regard to the legislation of 1925. Three years have passed, and after Mr. Justice Feetham had made his award, in substitution for that, it was agreed to take the boundaries as they existed under the Treaty. May I put to the hon. Gentleman the terms of the Free State legislation, because the agreement was included in that? The agreement between the United Kingdom, the Free State and Northern Ireland recognises friendly relations, and
the Government of the United Kingdom and of the Free State being united in amity in this undertaking with the Government of Northern Ireland,
and then, on that, they agree and accept that the boundaries of Northern Ireland shall be those set out in the Treaty "and to do away with the necessity of the award."
That was 1925. It cannot be said that that was done under compulsion, and really when that has been the position and partition is accepted on that basis, and when at the same time the vehicle or instrument for getting rid of partition is abandoned, again by the consent of, and at the desire of, the Free State, I fail to see where the suggestion of compulsion can be made, or the suggestion that this is a new matter today.
The hon. Member for West Belfast—I do not think he is here at the moment, but I know he would not mind my replying to the speech he made because that is part of what I have to deal with tonight—made mention of a number of old enmities. He called up certain things that had happened, and words that had been said. It would be equally futile if I were now to start to give the House an account of what Roger Casement did at one of the most critical periods in the war. They were clear, and—I speak as one whose blood is Celtic to fellow Celts—if we are not going to get rid of "unhappy far-off things" when every circumstance is changed, we are being traitors to the world, to our children and to posterity.

Dr. Morgan: That is why you are making it in perpetuity now.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: Hon. Members must really do me the credit of my argument. I have said that it was founded in agreement, and I am saying that something founded in agreement is not made gratuitously hostile because when one changes one's circumstances one declares that one is continuing what is agreed.

Mr. Mulvey: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the Treaty was forced on Ireland by threat of an immediate and terrible war? That was the statement of Mr. Lloyd George.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I said a moment ago that I would not even argue that point, although, of course, there is an argument the other way. The points I have been dealing with are three years after. I have quoted words of amity expressed by the Dail. The Dail has a greater right to speak for Southern Ireland than even the hon. Member for Fermanagh and Tyrone (Mr. Mulvey). I say again that raking up old enmities is the most unhelpful way of trying to deal practically and positively with the difficulties of today.
The hon. Member for West Belfast said that he would not be cynical, but he just approached the brink of cynicism when he mentioned certain of the qualities of the English. I, as a Scot, can also speak objectively about the qualities of the English, and I say that the commonsense of the people of this country seeks on this occasion to make clear in its laws the tolerance and kindness which, I recognise, are the basis of the English way of life, and I want to see it the basis of the whole life of Britain and those connected with it. That is what is being done today. I do not think hon. Members realise how many heart searchings people have had before they have agreed to this Measure at this time. I ask them to say that these very qualities which I have mentioned are the same qualities as would prevent us even contemplating deserting or failing to support our fellow citizens who wish to stand with us. Surely this attitude is not only comprehensible but right. It gives us a new starting point from which to go on to greater understanding and cooperation. We have received in reply so far merely hard words, but—and I am sure I speak for everyone irrespective

of party—we are still determined that it will not be our fault if this great effort towards greater friendship and cooperation fails.

9.24 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): We have, I think, on the whole had a useful and well-conducted Debate. As I listened to the contributions of hon. Members from Ireland, I had a fleeting regret that I had never sat in this House in the days when the great Irish Party sat here and indirectly caused those reforms in our Parliamentary procedure which this Parliament has now pretty well concluded. It must have been a great experience to have been here in those exciting days when the Irish Party were fighting with great vigour and when they taught Parliament what obstruction was really like and what it really meant.
It is true that hon. Members from Ireland have, perhaps, preserved on both sides of the controversy rather long memories—perhaps longer than is good—but this is inevitable on these occasions. I think we can say that if this Debate had taken place 40 or 50 or 60 years ago, there would have been much more excitement and many more hard words said than we have had during the Debate today. I think it has been a very good Debate it has not caused personal abuse or disorder—and believe me, as Leader of the House, I am not complaining about that.
I am much obliged to the right hon. and learned Member for West Derby (Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe) for a speech which, I think the House generally will agree, was moderate, restrained, responsible and carefully calculated not to be provocative even among people with whom he did not agree. The same is true of the speech with which the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) opened the Debate this afternoon. Although the Government could have manifested some feeling of soreness about the manner in which this situation suddenly came at us out of the blue—and the blue was a very long way away—without notice and without our expecting it, although I think we could have felt sore, I am sure the House will appreciate the objective and restrained terms in which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister moved the Second Reading of


the Bill. Let us hope that that will be appreciated on the other side of the Irish Sea in all quarters, because we are most anxious, if it can be avoided, not to become involved ourselves in bitter words or a Donnybrook. We feel it is better that these matters should be discussed reasonably and quietly and without passion, if possible, tempting though some phrases may be.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman has referred to the capacity of our country to meet these difficulties with a certain degree of stoicism and quietness, and he referred to the courage of the country in facing these great difficulties. It is, of course the case that Ireland, geographically, as he has indicated, is very very near to our shores and we cannot be indifferent to the circumstances which obtain there. I think it is the case that if Ireland had been situated close to some other great Powers and countries in the world, the change would not have come about as smoothly as it has done, and that is very fortunate for Ireland. The country has taken this quietly; it is courageous on its part, and let us hope that we are right in the course which we are taking.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked, as did the Deputy-Leader of the Opposition, what was the reason for the somewhat exceptional drafting of the opening words of Clause 1 of the Bill. There is no hidden motive behind it. The reason the Bill does not start with the customary words, "It is hereby declared," is that it was desired to make it quite clear that the initiative was not that of our own Parliament at Westminster and that what this Parliament is doing in the first place is to recognise that which already exists de facto as a result of the action of the Parliament in Dublin. Therefore, we thought that the usual operative phrase would have been inept and, as I have said, the phrase which has been used has no hidden significance. As a matter of sound I think the words have a rather pleasant ring about them:
Parliament hereby recognizes and declares.…
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington made a speech which, I think, we all appreciated, and he indicated that the Treaty which was originally made has been abrogated

bit by bit, and that the latest incident represents the breaking of the final link.
With regard to the holders of offices requiring the declaration of the oath of allegiance, the position is that, in so far as that oath was required, it still will be required. The Bill itself makes no difference on that point. Therefore, Members coming to the Table will continue to have to take the oath or to make the affirmation in the customary form. For myself, notwithstanding what the hon. Member for the University of Wales (Professor Gruffydd) said, I do not think that there will be any difficulty about it. Indeed, I think—I am speaking from memory—I think it was the case in the Parliament at Stormont that at one time members could be elected and could draw their salaries without taking the oath of allegiance, and that later Members were elected and drew their salaries, but did not take the oath of allegiance. I believe that was altered so that they could not draw their salaries until the oath was taken, and that that is now the case; and I understand that in the new circumstances Members have taken the oath of allegiance—Members of all parties—and have proceeded to take their salaries.

Professor Savory: They have to. Before they can be elected they have to sign a declaration that they will take the oath.

Mr. Morrison: Then it is somewhat more thorough. In any case, if the matter raises no difficulty in Northern Ireland, I think the hon. Member for the University of Wales, who spoke for the Liberal Party, can take it that it will not raise any difficulty here, and, therefore, I do not think he need be apprehensive on the point.
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington that we certainly could not be a party—I do not think anybody in this House would be—to taking the initiative in urging, Northern Ireland to leave the United Kingdom, and therefore, the Commonwealth. That would be an unthinkable course which would not be approved by any British electorate. I do not know that anybody has really urged it. We agree that Northern Ireland must retain its own right of decision.
As to the allegation he mentioned that Mr. Costello had made, that the Labour


Government were introducing this Bill so as to get some political advantage over the Tories, I am bound to say I cannot follow that reasoning. I can assure all parties in the House that this is not a Bill which the Government ran after. It was the Bill that ran after us. We had to do something about it. So what Mr. Costello said was not the case. As a matter of fact, if we are all wise and sensible in our conduct in the constituencies, no British political party will get advantage or disadvantage out of this Bill. I would assure the Prime Minister of the new Irish Republic that no such thought is in our mind—and that it was not likely that it would be. This Bill is not the product of competitive activity between the British political parties, though it is possible to suspect that the Act of Parliament passed by the Dail, which declared the Irish Republic to exist, may have been somewhat influenced by competitive considerations between the political parties in Southern Ireland.

Professor Savory: That is quite true.

Mr. Morrison: I do not want that kind of competition between the parties here; I hope that there will not be any such competition. This is a Commonwealth matter, and as I said the other day, the more we march together on Commonwealth matters the better it will be. I think I have dealt with the main points raised by the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington, and we are all much obliged to him for the careful way in which he put his case.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall (Mr. W. Wells) generally supported the Bill, although he did not like the inclusion in Clause 1 (1, b) of the words:
or any part thereof.
I see the point. On the other hand, if we are to have a nibbling process whereby we are trying to get an exact boundary wherever there is any minority at all, then sooner or later there will be no Northern Ireland.

Mr. Delargy: Hear, hear.

Mr. Morrison: I quite follow that my hon. Friend does not desire that there should be any part of the United Kingdom in Ireland. Not all of us take that view. If we once start this business of saying that there is a minority in part of Northern Ireland—and we have to clean that one up—we

will soon get to a situation in which the whole thing becomes ridiculous. As a matter of fact, that has not been asked for by the Government in Dublin. They would not urge that we should have a minor plebiscite to see whether a fringe transfer into the Irish Republic should take place. The issue which they are raising is the total merging subject to understandings and conditions about which they would be willing to negotiate, of Northern Ireland into Ireland.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: Are we to understand from my right hon. Friend's statement, that we are to wait until the Government of the new Republic asks us to do something about which we ourselves ought to decide whether it is right or wrong?

Mr. Morrison: I do not think that argument particularly relevant. Quite frankly, this Government is not going to seek and take the initiative for the purpose of losing a part of the United Kingdom. I hope that my hon. Friend is not doing so either. If Irishmen get together and make agreements among themselves that is a situation which we will consider, but it is no part of the business of this Government—and it is not going to do it—to take the initiative to diminish the territory of the United Kingdom. As I say, if Irishmen themselves come together and make their own agreements, this Government will willingly consider the results. With respect to the hon. Member for Walsall, I do not think that the point which he raised goes to the heart of the dispute which has arisen on the matter.
The right hon. Member for Antrim (Sir H. O'Neill) made a speech to which we all listened with interest. He will forgive me if I say that I thought some of the points he raised were rather on the small side and in danger perhaps of setting the fires alight; but the House, on both sides, has been short of matches today and the fires did not get started. I personally did not think it wise of him to talk of the prospects of civil war. It is best not to talk about these things. If something happens we have to deal with it, but let us not be quick to prophesy bloody happenings which may not occur at all, and which we all hope will not occur.
The hon. Member for Platting (Mr. Delargy) strongly objected, as I would


expect him to do, to the provisions of Clause 1 (1, b). He said that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister had earlier used the term "the consent of the people," and I think his argument was that the way to get the consent or the opinion of the people was by a plebiscite rather than by a parliamentary decision.
It has not been the custom of our country to settle things by referendum or plebiscite, and I, personally, shrink from these expedients, which are, I think, not good and not in accordance with British tradition or practice. Nor, for that matter, do I think they are as democratic as the process of electoral argument—election and parliamentary decision: nor do I know that they are in accordance with Irish practice either. As a matter of fact, the particular decision of the Dail which led to the declaration of the Republic of Ireland was not arrived at by plebiscite. Indeed, I do not know that at the election it was an issue raised by the party of which the Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland was a member. I rather thought they took the line that they deprecated raising these constitutional issues. It is true that some other party did raise the point.

Professor Savory: Which one?

Mr. Morrison: A small one, I think, in the present Government at Dublin. Mr. de Valera had let the position remain as it was with the External Relations Act in operation right through his period of office. Therefore, there was not a real electoral mandate to do this, much less a plebiscite. It is a little bit rough, although I am not complaining; it is not the business of this Government to interfere in the way in which the new Irish Republic conducts its electoral business or its Parliamentary affairs; it is their business, not ours. But I am entitled to make this observation when it is urged that the issue of Northern Ireland should be settled by the process of a plebiscite. We think it is right to make provision in the Bill that it should be declared that the right body to decide whether Northern Ireland would wish to merge itself with the Republic of Ireland or to abolish the border is the Parliament of Northern Ireland, just as it would be the Parliament of the United Kingdom if constitutional changes were to be made in this country. I therefore think that that point is ill-founded.
My hon. Friend the Member for Platting asked three questions. First; What were we going to do to safeguard minorities? The answer to that must be that under Statute passed by this Parliament at Westminster the maintenance of law and order in Northern Ireland is the responsibility of the Government and Parliament of Northern Ireland, and it would be unconstitutional and improper, if not impossible, for this Government to take on responsibilities in these respects. Secondly, he wanted to know why we had put in paragraph (b) in Clause 1 (1). Had somebody pressed us or coerced us or what not, to put in this paragraph? Nobody coerced us. And if I may say so, nobody is going to coerce us on either paragraph (b) or anything else. We will not be coerced. This is a self-governing Parliamentary democracy. The reason we have put in paragraph (b) is because we believe that paragraph is right. I will come back to that point shortly.
Thirdly, he asked: Were the Dominions asked about this question of Northern Ireland? It is the case that the Dominions were consulted broadly about the development which had taken place as a result of the passing of the Republic of Ireland Act by the Dail in Dublin. There were consultations, and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, and other Ministers conferred with representatives of the appropriate Dominions. That was right, because obviously a Commonwealth issue was raised when the new Republic was insisting on going out of the Commonwealth.
Moreover, it raised all sorts of repercussions in the Commonwealth. Indeed, it raised the most grave issues, because without this Bill the Republic of Ireland would be a foreign State, with all the consequences that that involves, both there and to Irish folk in this country. That is another reason why we want to get the Bill through in order to remedy that state of affairs. It was, therefore, a Commonwealth issue, and it was right that the Dominions should be consulted. But with respect to Northern Ireland, I would impress upon my hon. Friend that that is essentially a United Kingdom matter. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. Therefore, that is the domestic business of the United Kingdom Government and the Government of


Northern Ireland. I will be quite frank in saying that the Dominions were not consulted about that particular point; but I am sure that they would not expect to be consulted.
My hon. Friend and others have raised an issue which is worrying a certain number of hon. Members: why have we included paragraph (b) of Clause 1 (1), and why did we not leave that situation alone? If hon. Members say that paragraph (b) is redundant and unnecessary, then they must take the responsibility themselves of affirming that the words of that paragraph are operative even if the paragraph is not there. If they assert that the guarantee it contains ought not to be there, they are arguing against the situation which, they say, already exists. If it is argued that the situation described in paragraph (b) does, in fact, exist and that that paragraph is unnecessary, hon. Gentlemen must be in support of the purpose of paragraph (b); but they have been critical of its purpose.
We do not fully accept the situation that paragraph (b) was unnecessary. Let us have credit for what we have done in paragraph (a)—if "credit" is the right word. We think we have got to do it, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, with regret. But let the critics know and appreciate that for the Government, after the unilateral action of the Dail, which it was constitutionally entitled to take, to say that
Parliament hereby recognises and declares that the part of Ireland heretofore known as Eire ceased, as from the eighteenth day of April, nineteen hundred and forty-nine, to be part of His Majesty's dominions.
and for the House of Commons to approve it without argument—with discussion, it is true, but without bad temper—is something that ought not to be taken lightly. There are not many Governments that would have done that, or many Parliaments that would have swallowed that, with the speed with which I think this House of Commons is going to do so. Somebody ought to say that we are a very generous and kind people, Government and Parliament that we act with such speed, although we get very little thanks for having done this. Instead, there has been a great deal of concentrated criticism of paragraph (b).
If it be the case that the British Parliament is going to declare that what was

known as Eire becomes the Irish Republic and has ceased to be part of His Majesty's Dominions, surely it is logical and rational that we should in the same subsection declare what is the position regarding Northern Ireland. It is ungenerous—if I may say so, it is somewhat intolerant and unreasonable—that we should be criticised for declaring what is the position of Northern Ireland when we have been exceedingly generous in declaring the position of our country to the Republic of Ireland. Therefore, having declared the Republic of Ireland not to be part of His Majesty's Dominions, we declare that
Northern Ireland remains part of His Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom and affirms that in no event will Northern Ireland or any part thereof cease to be part of His Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom without the consent of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.
That is not banging doors, but it is not unlocking doors either. It is leaving the situation fluid if the Parliament of Northern Ireland should wish to make a change, but if it does not wish to make a change, then we are affirming that the present position remains of Northern Ireland being part of the United Kingdom and part of His Majesty's Dominions and part of the British Commonwealth. I really cannot see that there is any reason for British Members of Parliament to get excited or indignant about that. It seems to the Government to be logical and to be reasonable and fair both to ourselves and to Northern Ireland that that paragraph should be in the Bill.
I have dealt with one point raised by the hon. Member for the University of Wales about the oath of allegiance. He asked that the Government should withdraw the Bill, and other hon. Members have asked that we should delay the Bill. Of course, the hon. Gentleman was entitled to put his point of view on behalf of the Liberal Party. We always take a kindly interest in what our Liberal colleagues do, and we shall see what happens when the Division comes. I was not quite clear as to what their line on the Bill really was, but one thing was clear, the hon. Gentleman asked that the Bill should be withdrawn and, as I have said, others have asked that its consideration should be postponed.
I am sorry, but we cannot accept those suggestions. It must be remembered that


at the moment legally the Republic of Ireland is a foreign State, and Irish folk in this country are foreigners. I can assure the House that my experience of Irish folk in this country is that they do not want to be foreigners. Indeed, the Republic of Ireland does not want to be in the Commonwealth but it does not want to be foreign—it is as far as I know quite sincere, on both points. [Laughter.]
We have done the best we can to meet that situation by this Bill, but I think the House will agree that it would be bad for this situation to continue longer than is necessary because, sooner or later, it will produce some great legal difficulties of disadvantage to the Republic of Ireland and to Irish folk who live in this country. Therefore we cannot delay the Bill. I shall inform the House tomorrow, and I think it is only fair to tell the House tonight, that we must proceed with the next stages of the Bill at the beginning of next week in order that their Lordships may have it and, I hope, get the Bill on to the Statute Book before the Whitsun Recess. For it is clearly desirable that this anomalous and possibly embarrassing situation should be cleared up.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. McGhee), with whose sincere convictions I am familiar, went so far as to ask us to withdraw the Bill. He referred to what we have done on India. I agree that we have handled that difficulty with success, and we were all grateful to the Leader of the Liberal Party for the just compliment he paid the Prime Minister in that matter. But, of course, the Indian question was a very different one. It is true that India wished to be a Republic, but India definitely desired to remain in the Commonwealth, whereas the Republic of Ireland definitely wished to go out of the Commonwealth.
The hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Hollis) spoke generally in support of the Bill. I thought a good and sincere speech was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Haire), who has long experience as a result of residence in Ireland and, generally speaking, I agreed with the line he took on the matter. Reference was made to the Labour Party view in Northern Ireland, and the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. J. Beattie) may well have been right in some of the opinions he expressed. I would not

challenge him as to what was the view of the Irish Labour Party, but he will be aware that some developments have taken place in Northern Ireland. As a result of the Irish Labour Party coming into Northern Ireland a new Northern Ireland Labour Party has been established, and it is only fair to inform the House that the Northern Ireland Labour Party has, for the first time, made a very clear declaration about partition. [Laughter.] I am not making any humorous or sarcastic observations because although this is a new organisation it is an organisation of substance. This is what they have said, on the recommendation of the executive. It was passed at their conference on a card vote, by 20,000 to 700. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite ought not to laugh about this; they should be rather pleased at this development—as I am:
The Northern Ireland Labour Party will maintain unbroken the connection between Great Britain and Northern Ireland as part of the Commonwealth, and to implement this hereby instructs the Executive Committee to proceed at once to take all necessary steps to seek the closest possible means of co-operation with the British Labour Party.
That is a development of significance of which we on this side of the House must take proper notice.
There are elements outside who are seeking to make this question a bitter matter of politics in the United Kingdom, to squeeze and bring pressure to bear upon Members of Parliament and Parliamentary candidates. This matter has in the long run to be settled in Ireland by Irishmen, and none of us, to whatever party we belong, ought to be parties to permitting ourselves to be squeezed and coerced on a matter which ought not to be a deciding factor in British politics.
I have co-operated, and so have my right hon. and hon. Friends, with Irishmen in many good causes for many years. The Labour Party has been a good friend of Irish freedom from the old Home Rule days, and many Irish folk in this country vote heavily for Labour candidates for various public offices. [Interruption.] That is the spirit I do not like. I am sorry; I should have paid no attention to an interruption from the Public Gallery, but I thought it was an hon. Member who made that interjection. I do not believe that Irish folk who have lived in Great Britain for many years will take the position that unless we seek to cut off another part of the United King-


dom and drive it somewhere else, they will let that influence their votes at Parliamentary elections. I hope that none of us will encourage them to do so or will pursue policies which will encourage them to do so, or this Irish issue might well become an embarrassing issue in British politics again.

Dr. Morgan: Why not?

Mr. Morrison: Our first duty as British Members of Parliament is to the people who send us here, and to our country. I earnestly trust that all of us will be sufficiently courageous and

restrained, and that we shall not permit this to be a disturbing and bargaining factor in the political scene in Great Britain. I am obliged to the House for the tolerant and understanding reception which it has given to the Bill. I now invite the House to give the Bill, if not a unanimous Second Reading, at any rate a Second Reading by an overwhelming majority.

Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

The House divided: Ayes, 317: Noes, 12.

Division No.137.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Adams, Richard (Balham)
Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N.W.)
Hamilton, Lt.-Col. R.


Albu, A. H.
Corlett, Dr. J.
Hannon, Sir P. (Moseley)


Alexander, Rt. Hon. A. V
Cove, W. G.
Harden, J R. E.


Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)
Crawley, A.
Hardman, D R.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Hastings, Dr. Somerville


Alpass, J. H
Crossman, R. H. S.
Haughton. S G


Amory, D. Heathcoat
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O E
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir C.


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Daggar, G
Henderson, Rt. Hon. A (Kingswinford)


Attewell, H. C.
Daines, P.
Henderson, Joseph (Ardwick)


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Darling, Sir W. Y.
Herbison, Miss M


Awbery, S. S.
Davidson, Viscountess
Hewitson, Capt M


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B
Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Hobson, C. R


Baird, J.
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Hogg, Hon. Q


Baldwin, A. E.
Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S.W.)
Hollis, M. C


Balfour, A.
de Freitas, Geoffrey
Holman, P


Barlow, Sir J.
Dodds, N. N.
Holmes, H. E (Hemsworth)


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Horabin, T. L.


Barstow, P. G.
Donovan, T.
Houghton, A. L, N. D. (Sowerby)


Barton, C.
Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)
Hughes, H. D. (Wolverhampton, W.)


Battley, J. R.
Dugdale, Maj. Sir T. (Richmond)
Hulbert, Wing-Cdr. N. J


Bechervaise, A. E.
Dumpleton, C. W.
Hurd, A.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Duthie, W. S.
Hynd, H. (Hackney, C.)


Benson, G.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Irving, W. J. (Tottenham, N.)


Berry, H.
Eden, Rt. Hon, A.
Janner, B.


Beswick, F.
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Sir C. (Bedwellty)
Jay, D. P. T,


Bevin, Rt. Hon. E. (Wandsworth, C.)
Edwards, John (Blackburn)
Jeffreys, General Sir G.


Binns, J.
Edwards, Rt. Hon. N. (Caerphilly)
Jeger, C. (Winchester)


Blenkinsop, A
Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)
Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)


Blyton, W. R.
Evans, Albert (Islington, W.)
John, W.


Boardman, H.
Evans, John (Ogmore)
Johnston, Douglas


Bossom, A. C.
Evans, S N. (Wednesbury)
Jones, Rt. Han. A. C. (Shipley)


Bottomley, A. G.
Ewart, R.
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepool)


Bowden, Flg. Offr. H. W.
Fairhurst, F.
Jones, P. Asterley (Hitchin)


Bramall, E. A.
Farthing, W. J.
Keeling, E. H.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W
Fletcher, E G M.(Islington, E)
Kendall, W. D.


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Follick, M
Kenyon, C.


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Fool, M M
Kerr, Sir J. Graham


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Forman, J C
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W


Brown, George (Belper)
Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
King, E. M.


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Freeman, J. (Watford)
Kinghorn, Sqn.-Ldr E


Brown, W. J. (Rugby)
Fyfe, At. Hon. Sir D. P M
Kinley, J.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Gage, C.
Lambert, Hon, G


Burden, T. W.
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H T. N.
Lavers, S.


Butler, H. W. (Hackney, S.)
Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Lawson, Rt. Hon J. J


Carson., E.
Ganley, Mrs. C S
Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Gibson. C. W.
Levy, B. W.


Chamberlain, R. A.
Gilzean, A.
Lewis, A. W. J. (Upton)


Channon, H
Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
Lewis, J. (Bolton)


Chetwynd, G. R.
Gooch, E. G
Lindgren, G. S


Churchill, Rt. Hon. W. S.
Goodrich, H. E.
Lipson, D. L.


Close, W. S.
Greenwood., Rt. Hon. A. (Wakefield)
Lloyd, Selwyn (Wirral)


Cobb, F. A.
Grey, C. F.
Lucas-Tooth, S. H.


Cocks, F. S.
Grierson, E.
Lyne, A. W.


Cole, T. L
Griffiths, D. (Rother Valley)
Lytteltan, Rt. Hon. O


Collindridge, F.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)
McAdam, W.


Collins, V. J.
Grimston R. V.
McAllister, G.


Comyns, Dr. L.
Guest, Dr. L. Haden
MacDonald, Sir M (Inverness)


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Haire, John E. (Wycombe)
McFarlane, C. S.


Cook, T. F.
Hale, Leslie
Mackay, R. W. G. (Hull, N.W.)


Cooper, G.
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)




Macmillan, Rt. Hon. Harold (Bromley)
Rees-Williams, D. R.
Thomas, D. E. (Aberdare)


MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Reeves, J.
Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)


Macpherson, N. (Dumfries)
Reid, T. (Swindon)
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)


Macpherson, T. (Romford)
Renton, D.
Thomas, John R. (Dover)


Mainwaring, W. H.
Ridealgh, Mrs M
Thurtle, Ernest


Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Robens, A.
Tolley, L.


Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvonshire)
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G 


Mann, Mrs. J.
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)
Turner-Samuels, M.


Manning, C. (Camberwell, N.)
Robinson, K. (St. Pancras)
Ungoed-Thomas, L.


Manning, Mrs. L. (Epping)
Rogers, G. H R.
Vernon, Maj. W. F


Marquand, Rt Hon. H. A
Ropner, Col. L.
Viant, S. P.


Mathers, Rt. Hon. George
Ross, Sir R. D (Londonderry)
Walker, G. H


Medlicott, Brigadier F.
Ross, William (Kilmarnock)
Walker-Smith, D


Messer, F.
Sanderson, Sir F.
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)


Mitchison, G. R.
Sargood, R.
Wallace, H. W. (Walthamstow. E.)


Monslow, W.
Savory, Prof. D. L
Warbey, W. N.


Morley, R.
Scott-Elliot, W.
Watkins, T. E.


Morrison, Rt. Hn. H. (Lewisham, E.)
Segal, Dr. S.
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)


Mullan, Lt. C. H.
Shackleton, E. A A.
Welts, P. L. (Faversham)


Murray, J. D.
Sharp, Granville
Wells, W. T. (Walsall)


Nally, W.
Shawcross, C. N. (Widnes)
West, D. G.


Neal, H. (Claycross)
Shawcross, Rt. Hn. Sir H. (St. Helens)
Wheatley, Rt. Hn. J. T. (Edinb'gh, E.)


Neill, Sir William (Belfast, N.)
Shinwell, Rt. Hon E.
Wheatley, Colonel M. J. (Dorset, E.)


Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)
Silkin, Rt. Hon L
White, H. (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Nicholls, H. R. (Stratford)
Simmons, C. J.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon W


Nicholson, G.
Skinnard, F. W.
Wigg, George


Noel-Baker, Capt. F. E. (Brentford)
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W.
Wilcock, Group-Capt. C A B


Noel-Baker, Rt Hon. P J. (Derby)
Smith, C. (Colchester)
Wilkes, L.


Nutting, Anthony
Snow, J. W
Wilkins, W. A


Oliver, G. H.
Solley, L. J.
Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)


O'Neill, RI. Hon. Sir H
Sorensen, R. W.
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)


Paget, R. T.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)
Steele, T.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Palmer, A. M. F.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Pargiter, G. A.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.
Williams, W. R (Heston)


Parker, J.
Stross, Dr. B.
Willis, E


Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)
Stubbs, A E.
Wills, Mrs. E. A.


Paton, J. (Norwich)
Studholme, H. G.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A


Peart, T. F.
Summerskill Rt. Hon. Edith
Woods, G S.


Popplewell, E.
Swingler, S.
York, C.


Porter, E. (Warrington)
Sylvester, G. O 
Young, Sir R (Newton)


Price, M. Philips
Symonds, A. L.
Younger, Hon. Kenneth


Proctor, W. T.
Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'dd't'n. S.)



Pursey, Comdr. H.
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Randall, H. E.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Mr. Pearson and Mr. Hannan.


Ranger, J.
Taylor, Dr. S. (Barnet)





NOES


Beattie, J. (Belfast, W.)
McGovern, J.
Skeffington-Lodge, T. C


Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)
Maclean, N. (Govan)
Stokes, R. R.


Delargy, H. J.
Mellish, R. J.



Gallacher, W.
Piratin, P.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Gunter, R. J
Skeffington, A. M.
Mr. Mulvey and Mr. Cunningham.


Question put, and agreed to.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House for Tomorrow.—[Mr. Popplewell.]

CONSOLIDATION BILLS AND STATUTE LAW REVISION BILLS

Colonel Gomme-Duncan discharged from the select Committee appointed to join with a Select Committee appointed by the Lords on Consolidation Bills and Statute Law Revision Bills and Brigadier Thorp added to the Committee—[Mr. R. J. Taylor.]

RURAL SCHOOLS, WALES (CLOSING)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Po Popplewell.]

10.13 p.m.

Mr. Watkins: I shall be glad if the House will remain for half-an-hour on the journey back from Ireland in order to discuss one or two matters concerning Wales. I wish to raise the question of the closure of rural schools in Wales, and I do so because early in the year I raised with the Minister of Education the position in regard to the closing of primary schools in Wales. I was then told that, since 1st April, 1945, 40 primary schools had been closed, and that of those 38 were in rural areas. My concern is that one-third of these rural schools are in my constituency.
It is also true that the Minister agreed and assured me that there are limitations to the closing of these rural schools, but I want to know what is going to be done about it. I am not altogether opposed to the closing of schools; as a matter of fact, I should welcome the closing of some schools, because of the bad condition of the buildings at the present time. I am certain that other hon. Members will agree that there are schools which ought not to be closed, or at least that villages ought not to be deprived of schools in some areas in Wales.
First and foremost, I would raise the question of the position of the junior pupils. I know that this Government, like other Governments, are doing their best, and the fact is that this Government have done more for the over-11 pupils to see that they get a better type of education, but I am mostly concerned about the junior pupils. There is an element coming in which was not thought about in 1946 when the development plans were made by the local education authorities, and that is the position of the

rehabilitation of agriculture. One of the things about which people generally in the country districts are concerned is a good social service. I suggest that education is one of the vital social services. If hon. Members have not done so already, I hope they will read the Ministry of Education pamphlet on Education in Rural Wales. After reading it, and bearing in mind the desire of the Government to expand the agricultural programme, I am sure they will agree with me that they ought to do everything possible to encourage people to remain in, and come to, the areas.
The provision of rural schools is a vital one to that extent. What is the use of other Government Departments doing their utmost to get people to remain in the countryside if schools are not provided? I am given to understand that up to 31st March this year no fewer than 7,353 houses were built by rural district councils in Wales. That is a good contribution to what has been done to rehabilitate the agricultural industry. On the other hand, however, I find from the June returns for 1948 that only 1,634 additional regular workers have come into the agricultural industry since 1938. There has been a proportion of five to one of casual or temporary workers coming into the agricultural industry in Wales during the same period. I suggest that the lack of social services is one of the reasons why people are not taking up regular work in the industry.
If we look at the number of closures suggested in the development plans in Wales we would find that—I am only taking four counties—in Anglesey there were 22, in Merioneth 17, in Brecon 42, and in Radnor 49. I represent those two last counties in this House. Who is really responsible for these closures? The leaders of education in Wales suggest that it is the policy of this Government to close rural schools. I want that to be flatly denied because it is not. The development plans are put up by the local education authorities. I would also like to have from the Parliamentary Secretary a denial of what is said by educational leaders—for instance, by the Chairman of the Education Committee for Breconshire and the leaders of education in Radnor—that it was the policy laid down on 18th October, 1944, when the present Home Secretary who was then Parliamentary Secretary to the


Ministry of Education, came to Llandrindod Wells and said that these schools must be closed. I hope that something will be said about that matter.
A storm is rising in Wales at the present time because of the closing of these schools. There are two schools in Wales where parents have defied this closure altogether, they are on strike at the present time. One is in Merioneth and one in Anglesey. A further strike was threatened in Brecon, but due to my intervention it did not take place; I advised against it. I submit these points for consideration. I hope that, in view of what I have said about the expansion of the agricultural programme, some review of the development plans for 1946 will take place. I suggest that because of the target date which was set at that time, these were done in a hurry. Certainly to my knowledge they were done without prior consultation with the people affected.
Secondly, I suggest that even now, before closures take place, there should be consultation with the parents and even with teachers or any other people interested in education in rural districts. The ordinary man in the street is unaware of the development plans. They are certainly not known to the people residing in the two counties which I represent unless they ask for them. As a result of agitation by those who have influence, some of the closures suggested in the development plans have been withdrawn, but they should not be withdrawn by influence but by argument. I want the Ministry, if possible, to give advice. I know they cannot give instructions, but I hope that whatever else they may do, they will circulate my remarks to the education authorities in Wales.
The first which the people in rural districts know of these matters is in a legal notice, which appears under a certain Section of the Act, in the local newspapers. As a result of that, they send in objections. When those objections are received by the Ministry they are sent back to the local education authorities, and still the local education authorities make no contact with the parents who are affected by these closures. I suggest that the Ministry or the Department responsible for Wales should try to initiate consultations before any closures are effected. It may be that

after the advantages of closure are explained to the parents they will agree. There should be consultations not only with regard to the closing of the schools, but as to the best method and the best kind of transport envisaged by the Minister. On the other hand, the Minister may say that he cannot see anything in these objections. I would point out that up till now there has been no local inquiry into any closure in Wales. There may not have been a strong case for such an inquiry, but I suggest that the case which I am making establishes a need for an inquiry.
Up to the present, 15 objections have been received but there have been no inquiries. I know there may be difficulties about inquiries, but I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to make it clear to people in general when a local inquiry can be held. Must they ask for one, or is it merely left to the Minister to decide? If it is for him to decide, let us have some idea of the type of cases into which he will hold a local inquiry. On 17th February, 1949, the Minister told me that representatives of local education authorities normally met parents before proposals for closures were submitted. On the information which I have I suggest that as yet that procedure has not been followed to any extent. Perhaps it will be in the future. I hope that whenever the Minister has the advantage of meeting these people he will raise the question of consultations.
I should like to quote two cases. At Velindre school in Breconshire, 50 per cent. of the pupils live over two miles away. That school is due for closure. One does not yet know where the pupils are going, but in the meantime the parents were sent a questionnaire in which they were asked why they would like to retain the school. With the exception of one parent, everyone is in favour of retaining the school. I do not suggest that from a building standpoint that school is worth retaining, but surely there should be a school somewhere or other in that village. In Ithon Valley in the County of Radnor, eight rural junior schools are due for closure. In one of these schools there are 43 pupils. The distance they will travel to a new school, which has not yet been built, will be over 15 miles one way. Amongst these eight schools to be closed is one which was built in 1928 and


another which was built in 1930. The names of the schools are Llanbister and Dolau or Dolee, as the English understand it.
No case can be put forward for closing these schools because of bad buildings. These schools are centres of village communities and, in my opinion, they should not be closed at all. I know that this closure of schools will have a great effect in Wales. I am sure that the noble Lady the Member for Anglesey (Lady Megan Lloyd George) will forgive me for quoting the case of Llaneugrad where, I am told, the transfer is to take place of pupils from a Welsh speaking area to what I have been told is a predominantly English speaking area. Whether that is true or not, I suggest that that factor should have the serious consideration of the local education authorities. If they cannot do anything, some inquiry ought to be instituted by His Majesty's inspectors to see whether that is true, not only in this case but in any case where pupils are to be transferred from a purely Welsh speaking area. There is great anxiety about this among parents in Wales at the present time, because it must be realised that the influence of the Welsh and Christian upbringing of children by parents and churches may not be maintained. I do not say it will not be maintained, but it may not be maintained if we lose that village school, its life and everything that goes with it.
Certainly we have always regarded the village school in Wales as a centre of culture, with all its traditions. We do not want to lose that. I am quite certain that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary do not need convincing on this point. They have themselves issued a pamphlet on education in rural Wales. There is a chapter entitled "The rural school and its environment." If I could have a word from the Minister to say that every word in that chapter would be implemented I should have no complaint to the House of Commons about the policy of the local education authorities.
In my opinion it is not sufficient to have a policy of tightening efficiency and of economies. That should not be done at the expense of disregarding the personal element. But we are always told that it is either a question of tightening efficiency or of economising. But£s. d. must not always be the criterion when dealing with

human beings. As I have several times said to people who represent the War Office, when they come to Wales to claim land, we cannot measure culture or tradition by a map and certainly we cannot look at the proposal to close schools merely by statistics, maps or the number of miles children have to travel to school, or whether they can catch a Good bus or bad bus.
I welcome the statement of the Secretary to the Welsh Department in his foreword to the pamphlet which I have mentioned. He said:
It is the duty of all who care for the highest interests of rural Wales to preserve the best in its cultural heritage and through our schools to aid its rich and distinctive development.
That is what we all want in Wales, done in a proper way. I shall welcome any statement which the Parliamentary Secretary may make to this end tonight. I know he may say it is nothing to do with the Minister and that all this is done by the local education authorities. But I have great respect for the Minister of Education and the Parliamentary Secretary; they can guide these local education authorities, which consist of busy men who may not have time to go into all the aspects I have raised. This point was brought home very vividly on Saturday night, when I was president of a semi-national Eisteddfod in Sennybridge and one of the competitions was a co-recitation in Welsh of passages from the Fortieth Chapter of the Prophet Isaiah. I heard these six young children under the age of 11 from Cwmwysg School due for closure reciting this passage. I am prepared to comment to my colleagues in the Welsh Parliamentary Party that Wales would benefit more from these six youngsters reciting that passage than from even an advisory council for Wales. I do suggest that we ought to get some encouragement from the fact that I have raised this matter in the House of Commons. It is not altogether against the closing of small schools that I am speaking, but I am asking for consideration for some of the important points I have raised.

10.31 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Hardman): I am glad that this matter has been raised, and I can assure the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnor (Mr. Watkins)


that he has my sympathy in regard to many of the points he has mentioned. I have been chairman of a rural education committee, and I know the importance of the village school in the village; but when he states that it is generally said that it is the policy of this Labour Government to close village schools, I would rather he had said that it is the policy of this Labour Government to give to the children of rural England and Wales the same educational opportunities as we intend to give to the urban children of England and Wales.
In the development plans for the rural areas, the size and siting of the village school is a matter in primary education of real and urgent importance. I quite agree with my hon. Friend—I know it from experience—that perhaps the most important single institution in the village has been in the past the church—and still in many villages is the church or chapel—but certainly all through it has been the school. Where the teacher is of the right type, as so many are, the influence of the village school is incalculable.
I remember, from my own experience, the headmaster of a village school who was something more than a teacher of boys and girls by day. He was, in fact, an adviser and friend of the whole village. He advised the farmers on how to do their areas, and how to make their weight calculations; and he had been doing that for well over 40 years. We find him at present responsible for organising and inspiring the young farmers' club. Surely such a man, or such a woman, who can be found in many villages in Wales and in England, is invaluable in the rural life of the country, and the happy, informal atmosphere of many village schools is immensely valuable in moral and social training.
But there is this question of giving to the rural child the best possible amenities. We have to implement the Act of 1944. We have to see that by reasonable, and I hope in most instances locally supported, reorganisation our rural children have the best opportunities we can give to them. I know that in the case of Radnorshire, looking at the development plan of that administrative authority, there is provision for the closure of a comparatively large number of existing primary schools, and if not for the

closure, then the grouping of schools. I am glad to be able to inform my hon. Friend that that authority has been asked to reconsider this particular part of the proposals in the development plan. It is understood that Breconshire, too, may reconsider some of its development plan proposals involving the closure of schools. I can assure my hon. Friend that there will be ample opportunity for people in the locality to raise objections to these closures and we advise local authorities that the best way of effecting educational administration in the area is by as much co-operative effort with parents and teachers as possible. So far as these two areas are concerned, both my right hon. Friend the Minister, and myself, are convinced that there will not be undue pressure either from the local authority or the Ministry for a wholesale closure of village schools.
Why should local authorities decide to close some of the village schools? Those of us who travel up and down the country will agree, as my hon. Friend has himself agreed, that many of the one or two teacher schools are housed in most inappropriate buildings. Many of these schools in England, at any rate, were built before 1900, and nearly 200 in one county in rural England were built before 1870. One hundred years ago this standard was considered adequate, but by modern standards, and certainly by the standards of this Government, they are considered a scandalous provision for rural children. But it takes time, and going round some of the rural areas almost month by month as I do, in Wales as well as in England, I am appalled by the number of gloomy and dilapidated schools in rural areas. They should have been altered or closed and new schools built years ago. I say that it should be considered almost criminal neglect on the part of those responsible in years gone by.
There is, of course, an economic argument that the functioning of a one or two teacher school costs a great deal, and I agree with my hon. Friend that that is not the only argument; but I am forced to say that where it is possible to combine schools in a reasonable area—and certainly not in a distance of 15 miles as my hon. Friend mentioned—then that reorganisation should take place. In my own experience, as chairman of a rural authority, when we built our village schools in Cambridgeshire and the senior


boys and girls came from nine or ten villages at the beginning of the term, boys and girls would go into the cloak rooms and turn on the taps because of their amazement at seeing water running from a tap, which they had never seen before. That is, within a comparatively short distance of the capital of England and the capital of the British Empire. When one can reorganise in that way, one is certainly helping the education of our rural children.
I can assure my hon. Friend that we are not in favour of the wholesale closure of village schools that we recognise the important part that the village school, the village schoolmaster, and the village schoolmistress have played in the rural life of our country. But we also recognise that nowadays—whether this is right or wrong, it is nevertheless true—it is difficult to get staff to go into the more

remote schools. They want to be neat places where there is reasonable relaxation and amusement, and therefore we think that, balancing one side with the other, there are benefits to be obtained from reorganisation.
I would finally say that my hon. Friend has our sympathy in this matter, but that we put the children first. Recognising the value of the village school, we are nevertheless prepared to go ahead with reorganisation and to agree to the development plans where the education of the rural child is to be as good as the education of the urban child and the child living in the industrial areas.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty Minutes to Eleven o'Clock.